Desert bighorn sheep return to Franklin Mountains

From KTEP:

Desert bighorn sheep are back roaming the Franklin Mountains. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department released about 80 sheep to their historic range as part of a larger effort to return the native animals that disappeared in Texas because of disease and unregulated hunting.

“It’s just a dream come true in terms of sheep restoration,” said Jose Etchart, a senior biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife in El Paso.

The park on the outskirts of El Paso is considered a prime location for the desert bighorn sheep to thrive. The city provides a buffer to isolate the animals from a disease spread by Aoudad, a wild sheep imported from North Africa for hunts in West Texas.

“This is probably one of, if not the only mountain range in west Texas that doesn’t have the Aoudad,” said Froylan Hernandez, project manager for the Desert Bighorn Sheep Restoration Project.

Desert Bighorn Sheep restoration project manager Froylan Hernandez and Franklin Mountains State Park Superintendent Cesar Mendez discuss the return of desert bighorn sheep after the native animals are released in the nearby mountains.
Angela Kocherga / KTEP News

Texas Parks and Wildlife invited the public to be part of the historic event at Franklin Mountains State Park. Michelle Altamirano brought her son to witness the moment under a bright blue sky.

“Something that I won’t get to see again, and I think it’s just really cool to be out in the sun in great weather,” she said.

Her son Mozzy, 6, was excited to see his first sheep, especially a desert bighorn.“It sounds really cool!” he said.

People wait to see the desert bighorn sheep release at Franklin Mountains State Park. The public was invited to celebrate the historic return of the sheep to El Paso.
Angela Kocherga / KTEP News

A TPWD crew captured the sheep in a wildlife management area in Brewster County using nets shot from helicopters. They tested sheep to ensure they were healthy before transporting on trailers to El Paso.

Anticipation was palpable as the trailers rolled into the park. One by one they backed up to a patch of land pointed toward the mountain range. When the doors to the first trailer opened a group of ewes hesitated for a moment then took off toward the mountains. When some of the rams were released, they stopped and stared at the people gathered there for a moment then darted up the mountainside.

“We’re all so excited. This has been decades in the thinking and the last two years in the making” said Texas Parks and Wildlife Executive Director David Yoskowitz, as he watched the release. “We have 40 mature females that are all pregnant. El Paso, y’all, are going to have baby lambs on the landscape come next spring.”

El Paso’s Franklin Mountains are critical to the success of the to return the native animals to Texas. Desert bighorn sheep roamed the Trans-Pecos mountains across Texas in large numbers in the late 1800s. The last sheep disappeared in the 1960s because of unregulated hunting, resource competition from domestic sheep and goats and disease.

The return of bighorn sheep to their home high in the Franklin Mountains holds personal significance for Bernadine Dittmar.

Bernadine Dittmar attended the desert bighorn sheep release at Franklin Mountains State Park to honor the memory of her husband, wildlife veterinarian Dr. Bob Dittmar and his work with bighorn sheep. He was killed in a helicopter crash in 2020 with two other TPWD employees out surveying bighorn sheep in Brewster County.
Angela Kocherga / KTEP News

“It’s a big day,” she said. She’s the widow of Dr. Bob Dittmar, the first veterinarian for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He was among three TPWD employees killed in a helicopter crash in 2020 while surveying bighorn sheep in Brewster County as part of the restoration effort. She came to the release to honor her husband’s memory.

“It is a moment in time that I hope all these children realize how important it is when they bring their children here to see them thriving because my husband called them majestic and that’s just what they are,” said Dittmar.

When last of the big horn sheep was released, there was a round of applause as a ram darted up the mountainside to join the rest of the herd.

The El Paso release was the pinnacle of the massive effort to bring the sheep back to the Franklin Mountains, said Hernandez.

“This is the exclamation point, seeing that last ram get out and going off to its new home.”

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