Folks in Colorado Springs can thank a broken-down truck and a 1944 discovery for the big herd of bighorn sheep in the Rampart Range.
And that same herd is helping replenish populations that disappeared back in the 1800s when Colorado’s state animal was nearly extinct, according to Bill Vogrin, a spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The most recent chapter in this story happened on Monday, when 24 sheep in the herd in Colorado Springs were captured and relocated to Badger Creek Canyon in Salida to replenish a population that collapsed due to disease.
“It’s kind of a neat tradition and it’s obviously been successful,” Vogrin said.
Thousands of people have seen a video of the process shared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Thursday, which shows rangers and volunteers baiting the sheep, catching them in a big net and then blindfolding and sedating them in order to bring them to their new home.
It’s something that happened every year until the Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012, according to Vogrin. Now that the herd near Colorado Springs has proven to have actually thrived in the years since, CPW is once again moving some of the bighorn sheep to new locations to replenish herds in places where they had disappeared.
Due to disease, parasites and overhunting the 1880s, bighorn sheep in Colorado were on the verge of extinction, Vogrin said.
Hunting them was banned in 1885, and it wasn’t until 1944 that someone figured out how to trap and relocate the sheep in hopes of bringing them back to the places they were when they were first described by Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado 500 years ago.
Bighorn sheep were first successfully captured in South Park, Colorado. There, wildlife officials built 1.5-acre traps using 16-foot high fences in a narrow canyon, and were able to capture 27 sheep.
They were then relocated to historic ranges, such as outside of Georgetown (you might have seen this massive herd of 200 to 300 sheep) and near Mesa Verde.
Vogrin says the sheep featured in Monday’s video weren’t even supposed to be in Rampart Range.
In 1985, a truck that was supposed to carry 14 sheep to Pike’s Peak broke down in Green Mountain Falls, and the sheep were released. The herd almost didn’t survive the night; Vogrin says they congregated on the train tracks, and one of the rams was killed.
Now, there are 177 bighorn sheep in the herd.
“It’s one of the healthiest and most prolific herds in the state,” Vogrin said.
One or two dozen of the sheep from this herd are relocated each year. The locations vary, but sheep have recently been brought to places in eastern Colorado near La Junta, where years ago, they used to roam.
Vogrin says they use hay, alfalfa, apple pulp and salt licks to lure in the sheep before they are captured by the net.
“Of course it’s traumatizing for a short period of time when they get trapped,” Vogrin said, but added it only took a matter of minutes for CPW staff and volunteers to run over and calm the sheep down on Monday.
“They subdue them, blindfold them, which calms them down, give them oxygen, they assess them, and they sedate them,” Vogrin said.
On Monday, the sheep were then loaded into a horse trailer and brought to Badger Creek Canyon.
“Many of them were quite comfortable in the trailer,” Vogrin said. “Some of them were lying in the straw and didn’t want to come out. Some of them came out like they were shot out of a cannon.”
The herd was later seen congregating on a hill a short distance away.
“They are very wild, they’re not permanently scarred or anything by this,” Vogrin said.
CPW will monitor the herd, and they’re hoping they won’t fall prey to disease like their predecessors, who are now in a wildlife health lab in Wyoming.
“We’re pretty confident that it’s safe to return bighorn to that habitat or we wouldn’t be doing it, obviously,” Vogrin said. “There’s not even a guarantee they’ll stay where we put them.
“These are wild animals. We’re hoping they’ll stay there and survive.”
Colorado’s population of bighorn sheep has swelled to 7,000 – thanks in part to efforts like these, Vogrin said.
There are still dozens of sheep in the herd near Colorado Springs – and they’re getting their own holiday on Saturday.
Bighorn Sheep Day is slated for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center in Colorado Springs. You can learn more about that here: http://bit.ly/2BhukRb
