The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is continuing its multi-year research project on bighorn sheep in the Jackson Region with another sheep capture tentatively scheduled for Thursday. As in previous years, a helicopter crew will net capture the sheep and ferry them to a staging area where biologists will collect biological samples, measure body condition, fit them with a collar if a new capture, and release the sheep.
For the first time, a few captures are planned to occur on Miller Butte with the rest occurring near the eastern boundary of the National Elk Refuge in the Curtis Canyon area and in the Gros Ventre drainage.
Most of these female bighorn sheep have been previously captured for disease sampling and fitted with radio collars in an effort to learn more about their survival, migration patterns and the interaction of nutritional condition, and various respiratory pathogens.
Researchers from the University of Wyoming will again perform an ultrasound on each animal to measure body fat. This is part of a multi-year study evaluating how body condition changes seasonally and how it may be related to pneumonia outbreaks.
