Over the past two weeks Utah has been able to participate in the largest bighorn sheep capture and translocation project in the history of North America. Due to overpopulation and extreme drought conditions on the Muddy Mountains in Eastern Nevada, 139 desert bighorn sheep were captured and relocated to 3 locations, two in Nevada and one in Utah.
On June 10th 25 Bighorns and again on June 19th, 13 desert bighorns, respectively, were captured and transported to Utah where they were released on the Richman Family Desert Bighorn Sheep Nursery, located on Promontory Point in Northern Utah.
With this augmentation, the nursery herd facility now has approximately 94 resident desert bighorn sheep and we anticipate moving sheep off of the facility, to supplement existing desert bighorn units within the State, as early as winter 2026/2027.
This project is the result of numerous funding and conservation partnerships including: KUIU, GSCO, NBU, Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, NDOW, SFW, Utah WSF and the Utah DWR.