New West Feature
In Colorado, Hunting Mountain Lions to Help Desert Bighorns
Wildlife officers are trying to help a herd of bighorn sheep in Colorado's Big Gypsum Valley for the third time since 1990. This time, officers will increase the herd’s odds by hunting any mountain lions that kill a sheep.By Kylee Perez, 1-13-11
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| Desert bighorn sheep scamper from trailers after being released just north of the Big Gypsum Valley in Montrose County on Dec. 17, 2010. Photo courtesy Brad Banulis, Colorado Division of Wildlife. | |
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The Big Gypsum Valley in Western Colorado is like a miniature Grand Canyon, says Dan Larkin, former president of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society. The winding river cuts through the massive, sheer red-sandstone cliffs dotted with juniper trees and other shrubs.
The harsh landscape fosters a less-than-successful herd of desert bighorn sheep, Colorado’s state mammal, and one that has captivated photographers, hunters, hikers and biologists alike.
The herd at Big Gypsum Valley—which, until last month, had only 15 animals—has struggled since it was introduced by the Colorado Division of Wildlife in 1990.
As a result, wildlife officers recently decided to augment the herd with 15 animals taken from a larger, more successful herd of 150 animals. This is the third time the DOW has introduced new sheep to the Big Gypsum Valley since 1990.
On Dec. 16, wildlife officers captured 15 desert bighorn sheep from the Upper Dolores Canyon in San Miguel County and moved them to be with the existing herd of 15 animals in the Big Gypsum Valley in Montrose County the next day. Wildlife officials hope doubling the size of the smaller herd will increase its chances at success.
The DOW believes that past attempts at creating a successful herd in this area were thwarted by mountain lion predation. This time, the herd will be receive additional help from the DOW in the form of predator control.
Wildlife officers will monitor local mountain lions to ensure they aren’t preying on any of the sheep in the area. Those that do will be killed.
Although the mountain lion population in Western Colorado is very robust, said Joe Lewandowski, spokesperson for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the Big Gypsum Valley is not prime mountain lion habitat because it doesn’t support a large population of mule deer, the lions’ primary food source.
If a mountain lion does kill a sheep, it will hide the carcass and continually come back to it to feed. Wildlife officers can use the signal from the radio collar that each sheep wears to find the lion and be sure they only kill the culprit animal.
The predator control policy will be in place for the next two years.
“It’s not something we go into lightly,” said Lewandowski said of hunting mountain lions that prey on the herd. “If we (aren’t) sure we’re not just going to go out there and start looking for lions.”
These steps are necessary to help the herd increase its population because the bighorn sheep are not a particularly prolific species like deer. Their dry habitat makes it difficult to produce a lot of offspring who will then compete for limited resources.
“Over the century, we’ve had lots of encroachment into wildlife habitat and animals were hunted and trapped,” Lewandowski said. “We want to give these critters a good fighting chance.”
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Comments
If you know the answer ..... fight wolves with all your might and every fiber of your being!
Humans are the reason those sheep are surviving today.
If the wolves were re-introduced to the mountains in the east,then they would be closer to those who insist on total protection for the wolves-this would then cause them to change their minds,due to the fact that it now effected them.
It's one thing for them to look at all the wolf pup pictures put out by the save the wolves types,and to watch the one-sided "documentaries" on the Discovery channel,or National geographic channel,but it becomes something else when it's their dogs,cats,and the large number of animals like llamas and alpacas that seem to be all over the east start getting killed by wolves,not eaten-just killed and left to rot,like the wolves do with many elk, moose, and deer in the Northern Rockies.
The wolves would have easy prey with all the joggers on reworked old railroad beds in the east,lots of flat straight terrain for them to run down the joggers and their dogs.
The predators may help with the gang problem in eastern cities though,hard for these punks to run in their oversized,hanging off their asses pants.