More bighorns will be brought to the Catalinas

Additional bighorn sheep will be brought to the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson this month in an ongoing effort to rebuild a herd there, state wildlife officials say.

“We’ll attempt to capture 20 bighorns in the Plomosa Mountains near Yuma and bring them to the Catalinas” during the week of Nov. 20, said Mark Hart, spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “The reason for the translocation is that we’d like to see more sheep on the mountain for the population to be viable.”

It would be the fourth translocation of bighorns to the Catalinas. About 30 of the animals were brought to the range each year from 2013 to 2015.

“The estimated bighorn population in the Catalinas is now 65,” Hart said. “The general project goal was to have 80 to 100 sheep on the mountain. But we don’t want to get too pinned down by numbers. We don’t know how big a herd” might ultimately flourish in the Catalinas.

MOUNTAIN LION ISSUES

A Game and Fish policy of tracking down and killing some of the mountain lions that prey on bighorn sheep in the Catalinas “is essential to establish a bighorn herd in the initial stage,” Hart said. “Some mountain lions are very good at killing bighorn sheep, and that can decimate a herd.”

The latest of several mountain lion killings by a contract hunter occurred in October after it was determined that the lion had killed a bighorn ram.

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Many citizens — including Cyndi Tuell, a Tucson attorney who has worked with a group called the Friends of Wild Animals — have criticized the killing of mountain lions for doing what predators in the wild must do in order to eat and feed their young — kill prey species including bighorn sheep. And some have questioned how the contract lion hunters employed by Game and Fish know they are killing the lion “guilty” of preying on a bighorn.

Hart defended the practice of killing mountain lions as “a state-of-the-art technique … and the purpose is to ensure the long-term survival of the herd.”

GPS collars make it possible to quickly determine the location of a dead sheep “so we can examine the remains and determine if it’s a lion kill,” Hart said. “The lion is tracked directly from the location of the kill. Typically, they’re still around because they tend to loiter around a kill for a couple of days and don’t consume it all at one time.”

He said hunters use dogs to find the lion’s trail and follow it until they spot the predator and shoot it.

Tuell said, “Sadly, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the advisory committee (for the bighorn reintroduction) are committed to continuing this failed project that has killed dozens of sheep” and several mountain lions. “Continuing this project is going to kill more sheep and more lions.

“The public has had no say in how this project, taking place on public lands and killing wildlife that belong to all of us, has moved forward,” Tuell said. “The environmental groups that are a part of this project have failed to keep their members informed about what is happening. This project continues to destroy the public’s trust in both the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the environmental groups that should be fighting to protect wildlife and wilderness areas.”