SCHLEPPING BIGHORN SHEEP: Big progress for the 
restoration of bighorn sheep to west Texas ... we have 
details ahead on Passport to Texas.

This is Passport to Texas

By the early 1960s native Texas bighorn sheep, which once 
populated 16 mountain ranges in the Trans Pecos, were 
gone. Unregulated hunting and disease from domestic 
sheep brought in by landowners did them in. But TPW TV 
producer Bruce Biermann says a segment spotlights a 
successful restoration project.

64 -- This story is called home again, because the bighorn sheep 
are finally being brought home again for the very first time they 
are being released on a state park. We show the population here it 
lives at Elephant Mountain. The capturing process is really 
interesting, with the use of helicopters. Once they come upon a 
herd, they try and capture what they call family units. That's 
another measure taken to increase survivability. They use a net 
gun and shoot a net over the sheep, and then a guy goes down 
and handles the sheep and gets is shackled, blindfolded and into 
a bag that they then sling underneath the helicopter and bring 
back to processing. And then they release them out at Big Ben 
Ranch State park. Forty six sheep were captured at Elephant 
Mountain and released. And, of those forty-six that I know of, 
they've had three die to mountain lions. But, that's part of the 
normal cycle. They've had many babies already born. So, the birth 
rate is far outgrowing the death rate. And the population is 
surviving and thriving.

Thanks Bruce.

The show airs the Week of January 22.

The SFWR program ... funded by your purchase of fishing 
and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel ... .

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti. 







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