An aerial survey of bighorn sheep in the Catalina Mountains in late September found an estimated 66 animals, state wildlife officials reported.
Thatโs fewer than the 70 or more bighorns that officials have said would be necessary to declare success in a project to rebuild a bighorn herd in the range north of Tucson.
The survey, conducted on Sept. 28 and 29, was aimed at getting an accurate estimate of the bighorn population โ an estimate that wasnโt possible by relying solely on data from GPS collars. Thatโs because collars had fallen off some of the animals that had been brought to the Catalinas in three translocations from healthy herds elsewhere in Arizona โ and because some lambs had been born since the translocations in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
A fourth translocation of bighorns is being planned to bolster the herd, pending survey results of potential source populations, according to a posting on a sheep reintroduction project website by the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
The department is overseeing efforts to rebuild the bighorn herd, which disappeared from the Catalinas in the 1990s.
