BEND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon wildlife managers are trying to boost the bighorn sheep population.
Biologists released 20 bighorn sheep near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument earlier this month, returning the animals to that area for the first time in more than a century.
Bighorn sheep are native to Oregon but died off in the early 1900s from domestic livestock disease, hunting and other causes.
The state started trying to reintroduce the wild sheep in the 1950s. Between 3,200 and 3,600 bighorn sheep now live in Oregon’s rocky areas.
But the Bulletin newspaper in Bend reports that state wildlife managers are still working to establish healthy populations in potential sheep habitat.
