EL PASO, Texas — No, it’s not a sign of the apocalypse. Sheep are flying over Texas!
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has been using helicopters to capture herds of desert bighorn sheep for transport to a mountain range near El Paso.
The process is not new, as Texas has been trying to save the desert bighorn sheep from multiple threats in Texas for years.
According to TPWD, in the late 1800s, about 1,500 sheep roamed mountains across West Texas before that number was slashed to 500 in 1903. Unregulated hunting and transmitted diseases eventually led to the bighorn sheep being eliminated from Texas by the 1960s.
After decades of reestablishing the bighorns through transplant processes, their population was an estimated 1,500 across Texas in 2020.
However, the transmission of some diseases is now threatening the population of bighorn sheep. Officials have documented a 50% population decline since 2021 due to pneumonia. Now, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, along with experts at Sul Ross State University, are transporting the sheep to save them.
A herd on Elephant Mountain in Alpine was found to be disease-free, so the parks department is moving the herd from Alpine to the Franklin Mountains in El Paso. Officials hope the move guarantees disease protection for at least one herd of bighorn sheep.
Nearly 100 bighorn sheep were found in Elephant Mountain in 2014, and about 80 were captured by officials to transport them to El Paso. The herd will fly nearly 300 miles before being released late Thursday.