“ You try to find the closest match in terms of habitat that you can , and this is the first time since 1956 that we ’ ve transplanted bighorn stock from habitat so similar to ours . Bighorn sheep are creatures of habit , so this is important . Our hope is that when the sheep jump out of the trailer , they realize the Badlands offer the same grasses they ’ re used to eating , it ’ s the same clay soils they ’ ve walked on … it ’ s just like home .” A bighorn sheep hunting season is tentatively scheduled to open in 2024 . The status of the season was to be determined Sept . 1 , following the summer population survey . •
Altogether , biologists counted 106 rams , 202 ewes and 56 lambs . Not included are approximately 40 bighorn sheep in the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and bighorns introduced to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in 2020 .
Wiedmann was pleased to see an increase in the survey for the sixth consecutive year .
The northern badlands population increased 5 percent from 2022 and was the highest count on record . The southern badlands population dropped to its lowest level since bighorns were reintroduced there in 1966 .
“ We were encouraged to see a record count of adult rams , and adult ewes and lambs were near record numbers ,” Wiedmann said . “ Unlike the population declines observed in most other big game species following the severe winter of 2022-23 , the increase in the bighorn population was attributable to two factors -- higher than expected survival of adults and lambs during the extreme winter
conditions of 2022 , and better than anticipated lamb production and survival during 2023 . Basically , bighorn sheep are incredibly hardy animals that can thrive during North Dakota ’ s most frigid winters .”
Currently , about 490 bighorns make up the populations managed by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department , National Park Service and the Three Affiliated Tribes Fish and Wildlife Division , just shy of the benchmark of 500 bighorns in the state .
Bighorn sheep in North Dakota are a success story . When you think about it , there was only a 50-year gap between the time when the last confirmed bighorn was killed at Magpie Creek to their reintroduction by Game and Fish in 1956 .
“ A lot of credit goes to Game and Fish staff back in the mid- 1950s ,” Wiedmann said . “ We were one of the first states ( where ) bighorns were extirpated , and they took the initiative way back then to reintroduce that species . And
since then , it ’ s just been a progression of introducing bighorns to the Badlands .”
The turning point , certainly , was when Game and Fish introduced bighorns from Montana to the Badlands in 2006 and 2007 .
This is what Wiedmann had to say in 2006 about bringing bighorns in from Montana :
“ You try to find the closest match in terms of habitat that you can , and this is the first time since 1956 that we ’ ve transplanted bighorn stock from habitat so similar to ours . Bighorn sheep are creatures of habit , so this is important . Our hope is that when the sheep jump out of the trailer , they realize the Badlands offer the same grasses they ’ re used to eating , it ’ s the same clay soils they ’ ve walked on … it ’ s just like home .” A bighorn sheep hunting season is tentatively scheduled to open in 2024 . The status of the season was to be determined Sept . 1 , following the summer population survey . •
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