The State : Hunters to Bid for Sheep

Sport hunters will bid at an auction later this year for a permit to bag the first bighorn sheep to be legally killed in California since 1873. The state Department of Fish and Game said it hopes to find a trophy hunter who will pay as much as $100,000 for the privilege of taking a legal shot at a bighorn. Department spokeswoman Peggy Blair said the California Bighorn Sheep Assn., a Southern California conservation group, has been selected to conduct an auction in July on behalf of the department. Dick Weaver, a biologist active in management of California’s estimated 4,800 bighorns, said hunting them was temporarily outlawed by the Legislature in 1873 when the animals were threatened with extinction, and 10 years later the ban was made permanent. Resumption of limited bighorn hunting was authorized last year.