Taking Careful Aim : Preservationist First to Legally Kill a State Bighorn Sheep in 114 Years

A hunter who paid $70,000 for his permit has bagged the first bighorn sheep to be killed legally in California in 114 years, the state Department of Fish and Game said Tuesday.

Bob Howard, 46, of Palm Springs, shot an 11-year-old bighorn ram in the Old Dad Mountains of San Bernardino County late Monday afternoon.

Howard is a director of the Bighorn Research Institute, based in Palm Desert. Its members favor preservation of the bighorn species with limited sport hunting.

Howard, who has ranching interests in Northern California, declined to be interviewed.

Jim LaFarge, a spokesman for the institute, said that Howard would have the sheep’s entire body mounted for display at a museum the institute hopes to build in the future.

Hunting of bighorn sheep in California was forbidden by the state Legislature in 1873, when the animals were close to extinction. The ban was renewed indefinitely in 1883, and did not expire until the end of 1986 when Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy, R-Monrovia, carried a bill to allow limited hunting.

Earlier this year, the DFG adopted a bighorn hunting plan allowing nine kills in 1987. Using a procedure common in other Far West states, the department sold the permit for the first kill at an auction held Aug. 17. Howard’s winning bid of $70,000 allowed him to start hunting Nov. 21, two weeks before the eight other hunters.

LaFarge said that Howard studied about 50 legal bighorn rams in the Old Dad and Marble Mountains, before selecting the 11-year-old animal said to be near the end of its life. One of the ram’s horns was broken, apparently in past combat with other males.

“He could have taken one the first day,” LaFarge said. “But he was interested more in character than in size. He’s very conservation minded. He took one of the oldest in the worst shape.”

The eight other hunters, who have paid $225.50 each in fees to the state, are free to start stalking bighorns Saturday.

The fees paid by Howard and the other bighorn hunters have gone into a state fund earmarked for bighorn management and research.