Bighorns Come Home to John Muir’s Yosemite

The truck tailgates slid up, 14 white sheep leaped out one after another, and a species that hasn’t thrived in this part of the Sierra Nevada for more than a century was back home.

As they bounded up the steep, boulder-strewn mountain in Yosemite National Park, the Sierra Nevada bighorns completed an 85-mile journey aimed at re-establishing a herd that was wiped out long ago by hunters and disease.

It was an electrifying sight, one that conservationist John Muir would have relished.

After Muir persuaded the federal government in 1890 to set aside Yosemite as a park, he said he hoped that the bighorns--the “noblest creatures living in wild nature”--would some day return.

This week, they did, thanks to a 50-member team that included state and federal wildlife officials, veterinarians, truck drivers, a helicopter pilot and volunteers, all dedicated to preserving a species that numbers only about 300 in the wild.

The operation began at daybreak Wednesday, 85 miles to the south, on the slopes of 13,125-foot Mt. Baxter, home of the largest herd of Sierra Nevada bighorns.

As more than 100 of the sheep munched on sagebrush and grass just below the snow line, crews strung two 100-foot-long, eight-foot-high nets about a mile apart. Then they hid behind boulders, waiting.

Soon, a helicopter flew in low and herded eight of the sheep toward one of the nets. In a few minutes, they were entwined.

The capture crew dashed out from their hiding places and quickly, two to a sheep, freed the animals from the net, hobbled their front and back legs with leather straps and blindfolded them.

Then the chopper ferried the sheep, four at a time, to the expedition’s base camp nearby, where veterinarians, nurses, technicians and scientists went to work. They clipped identification tags on the sheep’s ears. They tested heartbeat, body temperature and respiratory rate. They checked the tongue, nose, eyes, teeth and general body condition. They took blood samples. They administered inoculations, vaccinations and vitamins and minerals.

The sheep were fitted with radio collars, then measured and weighed. Then they were carried to two truck trailers where the hobbles and blindfolds were removed.

Meanwhile, back up on the mountainside, the rest of the herd had gotten wise and were hiding in crevices and steep canyons. The capture proceeded slowly until a total of 32 animals were taken by afternoon. One of them, a ewe with a broken leg suffered in an earlier injury, was destroyed.

After a slow ride north in the shadows of the snow-covered Sierra Nevada, 14 of the animals were released late Wednesday afternoon and another 13 Thursday morning in Lee Vining Canyon, near Yosemite’s eastern gate.

The new herd consists of 15 ewes and a dozen rams, including seven 10-month-old lambs. All are considered capable of surviving on their own. Scientists hope the herd will eventually number 100.

There are two natural Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep herds, the one on Mt. Baxter--which after this week’s transplant numbers 186--and another 30 animals on 14,375-foot Mt. Williamson.

The new herd in Yosemite is the third transplant since 1979. Two previous transplants established herds on 14,042-foot Mt. Langley, home for 30 of the animals, and at Wheeler Crest, which had 31 sheep and got another four from this week’s roundup.

2 Groups Had Big Part

Two conservation groups, the Yosemite Natural History Assn. and the Sacramento Safari Club, played a big part in making the Yosemite transplant possible, according to Dr. Loren Lutz of Pasadena, president of the 25,000-member Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep. The Safari Club raised $28,000 and the Yosemite group $30,000 to buy up grazing rights owned by domestic sheepherders in nearby Inyo National Forest.

“It would have been impossible to introduce bighorn in Yosemite if that grazing continued,” Lutz said, “as bighorn sheep would be vulnerable to domestic sheep diseases which are almost always fatal to them.”

Indeed, one of the reasons for establishing several herds is to provide a safeguard against disease.

“It serves as a buffer . . . against any future catastrophic diseases from domestic sheep” that could wipe out the species if there were only one herd, said John Wehgausen, a scientist who has spent 12 years studying California’s bighorn sheep populations.

3 Races of Bighorns

California has three races of bighorn sheep: the Sierra Nevada bighorn, the Southern California Desert bighorn, and the Nelson bighorn in Death Valley and other parts of the state. They are the last remnants of the ancient California mountain sheep.

This week’s transplant operation was especially satisfying to Dick Weaver, who has been the state Department of Fish and Game’s bighorn expert for 37 years.

“We fantasized about restocking Yosemite with bighorn sheep for years,” he said as he watched the first of the animals being released to form the new Yosemite herd, “never dreaming in the beginning it would ever happen.”