Wildlife in C. Oregon: Oregon’s bighorn sheep revival

Native bighorn sheep are an elusive species that roams the deep canyons of Eastern Oregon.

“At the time of the Lewis and Clark exploration, bighorn sheep would have been the numerous animal in Eastern Oregon. They occupied all of the air-land ecosystem in Oregon,” wildlife specialist Jeremy Thompson said recently.

Thompson specializes in the species and has seen firsthand the dramatic change in the population of the native bighorns.

There are two types of bighorns, California and Rocky Mountain, that can be found across the state.

In the 1880s, domestic sheep ranching grew in the eastern part of the state. The domestic sheep spread a respiratory disease to the native bighorns, causing the population to take a hit.

In 1915, California bighorns vanished and Rocky Mountain bighorns remained.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife implemented a hunting ban on the bighorn because of the low population numbers.

“Our bighorn sheep restoration program really kicked off in the ’50s,” Thompson said. “We built a 1,000-acre compound on Heart Mountain and brought in 20 California bighorns from Williams Lake, British Columbia.”

Currently, there are more than 3,000 California bighorn sheep and a few hundred Rocky Mountain sheep.

The challenge is keeping the current population healthy.

“You can lose 70 to 90 percent of your herd from an infection, so our primary management goal is to maintain that separation so that our bighorns don’t come in contact with domestic sheep,” Thompson said.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is conducting a study in the Owyhee Mountains, looking at the scope of the respiratory disease and how it’s affecting the native bighorns.

The study is tagging memberd of the herd with collars, which alert researchers when a sheep dies.

Robert Spaan, an Oregon State University student who’s majoring in wildlife science, is currently located near the Nevada and Oregon border, where he’s documenting symptoms of some bighorn sheep herds.

Spaan told NewsChannel 21, the symptoms are very noticeable, with head shaking, coughing and droopy ears.

Spaan said some sick members of the herd often search for shade and water because they have a fever.

Officials hope this research will help find a cure for the illness, as well as ways in which the state can improve the population.

Currently, the state issues more than 80 gaming tags to people who are interested in hunting the sheep. People are not allowed to hunt in the Owyhee Mountains because of the study.

The money generated from gaming tags and other sources of funding helps ODFW conduct the study.

“When you look at a species that was completely gone in the state by the 1920s and to back up to 4,000 individuals. I mean to me that is still a success story,” Thompson said. “This is a species that was completely wiped out, and through our management actions we’ve been able to bring them back.”