Bighorn sheep helicoptered from Wild Horse

BIG ARM — For a second it was surreal, like a scene out of “Jurassic Park”: A group of bighorn sheep dangling from the bottom of a helicopter, like a delicious treat for a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex.

But instead of acting as a meal, the operation underway was designed to protect the sheep, moving about 40 of the animals from Wild Horse Island to different locations in northwest Montana.

Headed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and funded by the Montana Wild Sheep Foundation, the operation is critical to help maintain successful wild bighorn sheep herd sizes on the island and off, according to MWSF executive director Jim Weatherly. The herd on the island had reached approximately 203 sheep, a number far above the ideal 100 to 125.

“Anytime the numbers increase beyond the habitat carrying capacity, the sheep can undergo stress, and that’s pretty common in a lot of our herds,” Weatherly said. “In Montana, you need to manage those numbers because of the suitable habitat for the sheep.”

The animals brought off the island, according to FWP’s John Fraley, were transported via horse trailer to two different locations. One group of 24 captured Saturday was released in the East Fork of the Bull River near the Bearry Mountains in Sanders County. The other 16 were caught on Friday and moved to the Kootenai Falls Wildlife Management Area west of Libby. One ewe captured Friday overheated and died en route to Kootenai Falls, Fraley said.

“Whenever you move wildlife like that, there’s always dangers,” he said.

 A similar operation two years ago transplanted about 38 sheep from the island to the Kootenai Falls area.

Fraley said almost half of the transplanted herd died that year because of extreme winter weather. He said with the mild winter northwest Montana is experiencing this year, he expects a much better survival rate. And with herds around the state being devastated by disease and fatal sicknesses like pneumonia, pure, healthy sheep are at a premium, and Wild Horse Island provides an ideal nursery for other herds, FWP Biologist Bruce Sterling said.

“There’s no hunting and no predators really, so it’s a great habitat,” Sterling said. “The population has a tendency to grow and periodically we need to go in and lower it to the optimal number.”

 The operation to bring bighorn sheep from an island is by no means uncomplicated. The MWSF and FWP contracted a professional helicopter capture group to get the sheep from the island to an area in Big Arm State Park. A pilot flew the helicopter while a net gunner spotted and shot the animals. The nets wrap the sheep up and a “mugger” jumped from the helicopter onto the sheep, subduing it, tying up its feet and blindfolding it. The sheep are then tied to the bottom of the helicopter, sometimes a length of five at a time, for the trip from the island back to shore.

“These guys do it year round and we don’t, we’d need lots of practice,” FWP Chief Pilot Joe Rahn said of the helicopter crew. “These muggers — it’d be tough to find guys willing to do that stuff in our agency.”

Once on shore, the bewildered, blindfolded sheep are subjected to a variety of tests to ensure they are healthy. Approximately 20 volunteers and biologists took throat cultures, drew blood, swabbed ears, took temperatures, fecal samples, ear tagged and estimated weights of the animals before carrying and placing them onto horse trailers to await transport. The workers petted and spoke quietly around the sheep to calm and soothe them during the stressful adventure.

As for acclimating to a new environment after their trip through the air and on the road? Fraley said the sheep take quickly to their new environment.

“They see the grass and trees and say, “This is where I want to be.”