http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=38& ... nd=6317975
I sure hope that poor thing has been tranquilized
More than 500 bighorns are believed to inhabit the breaks on the north side of the Missouri River, and more than 400 live on the south side. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission biologists say the sheep aren't spreading into new areas, and they fear that overpopulation could trigger a disease outbreak.
To reduce the number, Montana gives sheep to other states. Nebraska took 49 from the south river breaks herd in 2005, and those sheep were released in the Pine Ridge between Chadron and Crawford.
Nebraska biologists were surprised when they were offered Montana sheep for the second time in three years. Nebraska last week received 20 sheep from the north river breaks herd and 30 from the Sun River herd west of Great Falls.
Eleven sheep - three rams and eight ewes, each believed to be pregnant - stepped one at a time from the trailer and blinked in the bright sunlight after spending nearly 20 hours in the darkness. Each took two or three tentative steps on Nebraska soil, then bolted across the valley and up the sides of the steep buttes.
Terry Brown, on whose ranch the sheep were released, watched with pride as the sheep bounded effortlessly up the slopes.
"It means we're turning the calendar back 100 years to when the bighorn sheep were here," Brown said. "Look at them up there. That's the characteristics of bighorns. The way I hear it, they like to go awful high and stay in the breaks."
One ewe, rather than follow the other sheep up the slopes north of the trailer, swung south and headed toward Sheep Mountain, a distinctive butte named for the bighorns that once bounded along its slopes .
A pack of coyotes opened up, and the eerie howls and yips caused the ewe to change course and head back toward the bluffs to the north.
Coyotes and bighorns. Brown said things are back to normal in the Wildcat Hills.
