Endangered bighorn sheep moved to Yosemite, Sequoia parks

For the first time in a century, endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep are back on their ancestral range and headed toward recovery, wildlife officials said Monday. During an ongoing relocation effort, hundreds of bighorn have been captured with nets dropped from helicopters then moved to Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. “We’ve got the sheep where we want them on a broad geographic basis, which is a huge milestone,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Tom Stephenson said. “We’ve still got to get their numbers up a bit.” Between 1914 and 1986, no bighorn roamed Yosemite, and statewide their numbers hit a low of about 100. The animals were placed on the federal endangered species list in 1999. Today, about 600 exist statewide in areas critical to their survival, Stephenson said. The number is about three-quarters the size called for in the state recovery plan that indicates the importance of the animals to the survivals of mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes. State biologists recently started moving sheep from thriving herds in Inyo National Forest, in the southern mountain range. Each was examined and fitted with a GPS tracking collar. Seven ewes and three rams are being relocated in the Laurel Creek area of Sequoia National Park, while nine ewes — eight of them pregnant — and three rams were trapped and released into Yosemite...more