Recently, I had the unforgettable opportunity to help study some of the bighorn sheep and mule deer in the Dubois area, up close. It was an incredible experience!
Along with several other volunteers, I assisted in a joint project of the National Bighorn Sheep Center, the University of Wyoming, and the state Game & Fish Department to monitor the body condition and migration patterns of these wonderful animals. Our job as volunteers was to help collect the sheep delivered by helicopter, and to protect both the biologists and the animals by holding them still while they were being examined.
Last year, several ewes were collared in order to track their movements and recapture them annually for physical examinations. A helicopter crew from New Zealand was hired to capture the sheep and bring them to the exam area near Dubois.
The crew used a helicopter and net gun to catch the sheep. Once the sheep were caught in the net, two muggers (yes, that is what they are called!) jumped from the helicopter to blindfold and hobble the sheep. They also wrapped them in a sturdy tarp for transport to the exam area.
The helicopter pilot’s skills were impressive, to say the least! He very gently laid the sheep on the ground, where volunteers picked them up and carried them to the biologists who would examine them. Each animal had an extensive examination, which included measuring their body fat, checking for pregnancy using an ultrasound, and collecting blood, ear, nose, and throat swab samples to test them for disease.
Most of the sheep were surprisingly calm throughout the process, especially considering that no tranquilizer was used.
The collars were then adjusted or replaced as needed. After this, the sheep were moved to an open area, where their blindfolds and hobbles were removed and they were set free. Volunteers were also able to help with freeing the ewes.
Once released, the ewes did not waste any time running to rejoin their herd. They are amazingly fast runners.
The collars on the ewes allow the biologists to track them and their lambs throughout the year and to monitor their health as well as their migration patterns.
As a new part of this ongoing statewide project, several mule deer in the Upper Wind River Valley have also been caught, examined, and collared with the same objective.
I would not have imagined that I would ever be able to get so close to bighorn sheep or be able to actually help with a project like this. I hope that the long-term results from this research will help ensure the health of these magnificent animals, and increase their population.
© 2016 Karen Sullivan. Image credits: Karen Sullivan (top), Nick Dobric (remainder)
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As I said nine days ago, Mother Nature messed with our heads on March 20, giving us a balmy First Day of Spring.
It’s spring break week, and down time in Dubois. The snowmobilers are gone. Many of the restaurants have closed for a few weeks. Even some hard-core full-timers have gone south, including fearless wilderness-loving Becki with her two children, off in search of the sun.
“This is such a pain,” I heard someone say behind me. “Those people [from WYDOT] are always so grouchy. They really don’t like coming all the way here from Riverton.”
I have heard people say there is no proper spring in Dubois.
The females are soft gray. The males always look to me like tiny pieces of the sky, broken off and soaring about at ground level.
(I’ve commented before about the false equivalence many people make between Dubois and Jackson. There’s enough snow over there to serve the ski resorts for the rest of the season, I hear. We can see plenty of it on the mountain peaks here as well, but around town it’s totally dry, as you can see.)
In the afternoon, lacking a plan but determined not to stay indoors, we took a drive up Horse Creek Road just to see what it looks like over there right now. We took the chance to leave the car and explore some cave-like formations. Just the perfect day for spring jackets.
I needed to run some errands “down county” in Riverton, about an hour away. It was almost balmy spring, and a different experience altogether from the wintry drive over the mountain pass to Jackson a few weeks ago.
I’ve met a few of these distant neighbors, but I don’t have any friends among them. “The Rez” feels like foreign territory, which I suppose it actually is.
The most prominent landmark on the drive is Crowheart Butte. You can see it in this picture, rising from the valley floor. I have no idea how the butte came to be on that flat plain, but nearly everyone here knows how it got its name.
My mother, who grew up in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, often lamented the travesty our ancestors had done to the Native Americans. But I was a child growing up in the Midwest when she raised me. I never saw a Native American (to my knowledge), or a reservation. Her words meant almost nothing to me then. I understood them, but I did not.
This avid outdoorsman has the best of both worlds. He spends his free time fishing, hiking, and hunting in Wyoming, in the Wind River Valley, but spends some of his working hours as a consultant to the Fish and Game Department for a different state–South Dakota.
“Dubois is one of those places,” as he put it, “where a consultant has all the quality access and communication links to the world through the Web needed to successfully compete in today’s markets, while providing an outstanding life space which stimulates those invaluable creative talents needed to excel in this line of work.”
On our return trip through Antelope Flats this side of Jackson a few days ago, we encountered ice and cold winds. But over the pass and back in Dubois, we found the weather milder and dry.
Maybe they travel even farther on this side of the mountains. Who knows? We’ll find out soon, thanks to the collaboration between the Nature Conservancy, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Wyoming Migration Initiative, and numerous other partners.
“After spending the winter of ’78 and ’79 in Jackson Hole, seeing the snow and the weather, I’m not surprised to see the deer and the antelope coming this way,” Mark said. “The elk used to leave too, but we started intercepting that with fences [which they can’t jump]. So we have diverted those elk to the feed ground [in Jackson] at extremely high numbers.”