State, U.S. Aid to Be Asked to Protect Bighorn Sheep

County supervisors have decided to ask for state and federal intervention to help protect the dwindling number of bighorn sheep in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Supervisors voted this week to send letters to the U.S. secretary of agriculture, the regional forester and the supervisor of the Angeles National Forest expressing concern over the lack of plans for three wilderness areas within the forest that are home to the sheep.

An annual survey of bighorn sheep from a helicopter counted just 35 animals, compared to more than 700 in the 1980s, county officials said.

County officials said the lack of wilderness plans has left the animals without an adequate habitat and led to a reduction in the number of bighorn sheep throughout the forest.

At the behest of the county Fish and Game Commission, supervisors also asked the U.S. Forest Service to conduct a 200-acre prescribed burn next winter in the bighorn sheep habitat north of Azusa. In addition, they asked the state Department of Fish and Game to shorten the deer hunting season.

The burn, county officials said, will increase the availability of open areas, making it easier for bighorn sheep to avoid predators, which have turned to the sheep because there are shrinking numbers of mule deer on which to prey.

The deer population has declined, county officials said, as a result of the hunting of does and hunting during the rutting season, when bucks are less vigilant.