Big Horn Sheep Conservation

By editor

Sula, Ravalli County, Montana, July 2016

The great wild sheep of the high crags, those sure-footed masters of the precipice, nearly vanished from the American West in the early years of the twentieth century. Driven back by the relentless pressure of overhunting and the devastating introduction of diseases from domestic flocks, their numbers dwindled until only a scattered few remained in the most inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains. Here in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, the story was the same tragic retreat, a fading away of one of the most magnificent creatures ever to grace the alpine meadows. By 1915, the state was forced to close the hunting season indefinitely, and by 1941, fewer than a thousand bighorns clung to existence in a land that had once supported more than a hundred thousand.

But the tide began to turn when men of vision recognized the peril and set to work to restore the wild sheep to their rightful domain. Beginning in the 1940s, biologists began the arduous task of trapping bighorns from their remaining strongholds and transplanting them to historical habitats, carefully isolated from the threat of pneumonia carried by domestic sheep and goats. In 1972, thirty-five sheep were released into Tolan Creek and Bunch Gulch on the east side of the valley, establishing the East Fork herd, and in 1990, thirty-eight more were brought to the West Fork from the Sun River Wildlife Management Area. The Wild Sheep Foundation, formed in 1977, has raised millions to support these efforts, funding research, habitat improvements, and land protection. Today, despite the ever-present shadow of disease, Montana's bighorn sheep population stands as one of the nation's largest, a testament to the enduring power of conservation and the resilience of the wild.

See also

• Big Horn Sheep Conservation at Sula, Ravalli County (Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, erected 2016)
• Lewis and Clark at Ross' Hole for more on the Bitterroot Valley's history.