bighorn sheep - Wildlife Management Pro

Big Horn Sheep Habitat Preservation Rewarded

Texas Bighorn Sheep

Habitat managment is the cornerstone of willdife restoration, but an important component of managing habitat can be simply preserving it. This has never been more true when it comes to managing Texas’s bighorn sheep herd. Recently, Texas Bighorn Society members David and Theresa Wetzel of Irving have received the Wild Sheep Foundation’s prestigious Gordon Eastman Grass Roots Award.

The late Gordon Eastman of Eastman’s Outdoor World created the award to be presented at the Wild Sheep Foundation’s (WSF) national annual convention, held this year in Reno, Nev. Eastman’s intention was to honor the hard-working members of the various WSF chapters and affiliates who get almost no recognition for their unending efforts to further the existence of North American bighorn sheep. Continue reading Big Horn Sheep Habitat Preservation Rewarded

Permit Auction Helps Texas Bighorn Sheep

A permit to hunt a desert bighorn ram at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area was auctioned for $70,000 last week at the annual meeting of the Wild Sheep Foundation. In recent years such permits have brought more — the last two auctioned for $77,000 and $85,000.

Regardless of price, permit sales still raise important funding for sheep research, management and restoration. Also at this year’s meeting, longtime department employee Clay Brewer was inducted into the foundation’s Wild Sheep Biologist Hall of Fame. Continue reading Permit Auction Helps Texas Bighorn Sheep

Bighorns Kick Domestic Sheep Off Alottment

Sheep grazing allotments in the Hells Canyon and Salmon River areas that were closed by the Forest Service in order to protect bighorn sheep, will stay closed. After closing allotments, the Service decided to allow grazing on the Allison-Berg allotment in November. But it then changed its position because the Nez Perce Tribe filed evidence of numerous sightings of native bighorn sheep on the allotment.

The court agreed with plaintiffs and the Service, finding that the:

“preponderance of the evidence suggests domestic sheep transmit a deadly respiratory disease to bighorns.”