Twenty-five bighorn sheep took flight from the Big Horn Mountains last week.

Nabbing 25 bighorn sheep from Devil Canyon for relocation to the Seminoe Mountains of south central Wyoming appeared to go off without a hitch Saturday.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s goal is to build a herd of 300 bighorns in the Ferris-Seminoe Mountains. The last count was 100 sheep, now augmented by another 25 following the Devil Canyon catch.

The population objective for the Devil Canyon herd unit (Hunt Area 12) is 175, according to Game and Fish.

“We fly a thorough trend count each July, and we know we do not count all of the sheep,” said Tim Woolley, Game and Fish Cody wildlife management coordinator. “We trend counted 177 bighorns by helicopter on July 17, 2015, and we manage for between 140 to 210 bighorns for Devil’s Canyon bighorn sheep.”

 Airborne grapplers

The helicopter crew searches the rugged terrain for their hoofed objective, with a net gunner riding shotgun. The net gun fires blank .30 caliber cartridges from a gun resembling a long-barreled pistol with a funnel attached. Packed in the funnel is the net. Riding with one foot on the skid a few feet off the ground, the gunner fires the net over the sheep. Then, a mugger leaps from the aircraft, tackling the tangled beast, said Cedar Hincke, mugger from Kalispell, Montana.

Hincke’s coworkers are from Native Range Capture Services from Echo, Nevada.

The mugger hobbles the bighorn and attaches a blinder to cover its eyes and administers a mild tranquilizer to reduce stress, Hincke said. Then he waits for the helicopter’s return to hook the bagged bighorn to a cable for the short hop to the staging area.

“The net gunner will get on the second one,” Hincke said. More sheep are found, and the net gunner takes another shot. Once the animal or animals are trapped in the net, he too bounds from the craft to hobble, blind and tranquilize his catch.

They can trap two per net, Hincke said.

You could say Hincke and his fellow muggers get a real kick out of their job.

“The sheep aren’t bad,” Hincke said. “They kick a lot. You try not to get kicked at all, but it happens.” Being agile helps the mugger avoid hooves.

Recently, they captured elk using the same method. Wrestling one elk is a two-mugger operation, Hincke said. “The elk are hard because they’re so strong.”

Capture Services also captured 160 moose in Maine and New Hampshire as part of a study about a winter tick that is devastating the moose population there, Hincke said.

Hincke’s radio squawks. “We got three young rams.”

With a throbbing like a jackhammer thumping rocks closer and closer, the helicopter is a distant speck with cargo of bright orange sacks, with horned heads poking out, hanging below its landing skids.

Pilot Mark Shelton eases his precious cargo to the ground. Like hospital triage teams, Game and Fish personnel and volunteers on the ground rush out to fetch the bighorns trussed in their bags.

Shelton executes a smart 180-degree turn on a dime to land near his ship’s support truck.

Expedited exam

A half dozen or more people huddle around each table to help subdue the nervous sheep and collect samples. They speak in hushed whispers, but they’re excited, like grandparents visiting their newborn grandchild for the first time at the hospital.

As in past years, local teacher Wendy Smith is there with her Powell High School environmental science class. Smith logs data while her students help hold the animals.

The bighorns offer little resistance.

The biologists and volunteers move as quickly as possible. Each examination takes about five minutes. Then the sheep are carried to horse trailer — called a “Ewe Haul” —  for transport to their new home. The enclosed trailers are lined with straw. The ewes huddle together, as though taking comfort from their close proximity with known friends. Despite the scary experience, the sheep are unharmed.

“The animals are all healthy,” said Hank Edwards, Wyoming Game and Fish Department Laramie disease specialist. Biologists collect feces, samples from the tonsils and nose, and draw blood to check for respiratory pathogens and bacteria. 

Twenty ewes, one lamb, three rams and one yearling lamb were caught, Woolley said.

The goal was 25 bighorns, said Tara Hodges, Game and Fish Cody public information specialist.

The Seminoes received a bonus prize.

The ewes that Game and Fish veterinarian Mary Wood examined were pregnant, said Greg Hiatt, Game and Fish Sinclair wildlife biologist.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been supplementing the Seminoe herd for years. Last March, 21 ewes, three rams and one lamb were caught and transported to the Seminoes.

Lamb production was good last spring, so the department wants to build the Ferris Mountains side, Hiatt said.

One sheep hunting license has been issued each year in Seminoe bighorn Hunt Area 17. This year there will be two licenses in Hunt Area 17 and one license in the adjacent Hunt Area 26, Hiatt said. 

The Seminoe and Ferris mountains are similar to the Big Horns in texture.

“It’s like this part of the Big Horns (Mountains), but only on a smaller scale,” Hiatt said.