BEND, Ore. (AP) -- When 20 bighorn sheep bounded off to the cliffs near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument earlier this month, they were the first of their kind at that site in more than a century.
The release, as well as one at the Cottonwood Canyon State Park along the John Day River, is part of an ongoing effort to restore the native species of sheep to Oregon, said Don Whittaker, ungulate coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
SLIDESHOW:Bighorn sheep release
After bighorn sheep died off in the early 1900s, because of hunting, diseases caught from domestic livestock and more, the state started trying to reintroduce the wild sheep in the 1950s. And while between 3,200 and 3,600 bighorn sheep now live in Oregon's rocky areas, the state wildlife department is working to establish healthy populations in potential sheep habitat.
The John Day River is excellent sheep habitat for most of its course, and it's got a lot of sheep in the river system, he said. But sheep are not necessarily good pioneers ... so what we tend to do is help them in their range expansion.
The remote location, climbable cliffs, and abundance of grasses and vegetation to munch on make the John Day Fossil Beds area prime bighorn sheep habitat, said Paul Ollig, chief of interpretation for the national monument in Eastern Oregon.
The area in the John Day River Valley, next to the Sheep Rock Unit in the fossil beds, is probably some of the best sheep habitat in the entire state, Ollig said.
And the wild sheep were in the area before European settlement of the area, he said, noting that there are petroglyphs of bighorn sheep in Picture Gorge, along the John Day south of Kimberly.
It's a species that belongs here, that has always been here. And it's just recently that they have been absent, Ollig said.
The sheep were released on Bureau of Land Management land, adjacent to the national monument. But Ollig said he hopes that the herd will venture into the monument as well -- and possibly be visible to visitors in the years to come.
Our hope is that as these 20 sheep acclimate to their new home, the herd will increase in size and they'll disperse through the area, he said.
The Park Service is interested in bringing animal populations back to areas where people have previously wiped them out, said Jim Hammett, superintendent of the Fossil Beds. But the project to bring back the bighorn sheep isn't something that the monument could have done on its own, he said.
We are a small enough national monument that we couldn't pull this off by ourselves, he said.
The state Fish and Wildlife Department traps, transports and releases between 20 and 80 sheep each year, at a cost of about $1,200 to $1,500 an animal, Whittaker said.
The funds for the state's bighorn sheep program come largely from the auction and raffle of two hunting tags, he said. This year, a hunter paid $110,000 for a tag at the auction, and a raffle for another tag raised $63,000. Between 90 and 110 other tags are offered each year, he said, noting that they are very difficult tags for hunters to draw.
Although Fish and Wildlife has now moved sheep into much of the prime bighorn habitat in the state, the state agency will likely continue expanding the range and supplementing smaller herds with additional animals, he said.
Moving animals around can also benefit the larger herds, he said, noting that too many wild sheep in an area could have negative consequences.
When populations do get high, they're more susceptible to stress and other diseases, Whittaker said. Trap, transplant and supplementation provides good things on both sides.
There's lots of potential bighorn sheep habitat on cliffs along the John Day River corridor, said Aaron Killgore, John Day Coordinator with the Oregon Natural Desert Association. There is a kind of network of wilderness-quality lands, he said, including the Spring Basin, Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven areas -- some of which the Bend-based organization is pushing for wilderness designation.
All of those areas could form kind of a patchwork corridor, he said, where bighorn sheep could be reintroduced along the John Day.
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Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com
