Deadwood’s Bighorns

Deadw d's Bighorns

A BIG HIT IN TOWN AND SURROUNDING HILLSIDES

Story by Mark Watson Photo by Alex Portal

When the Grizzly Gulch fire of June and July 2002 charred 11,589 acres of forest around Lead and Deadwood, it created ideal habitat for horse trailers high above Deadwood nibbling on alfalfa hay or licking the ice blocks placed inside. After a small crowd gathered, the sheep were released into the hill mostly bighorn sheep.

And in 2015, the South Dakota Game,

Fish and Parks Department took advantage of the burn area and released 26 bighorn sheep they captured in Hinton, Alberta,

Canada, just north of Jasper National Park.

In the pre-dawn light on the morning of their release, the sheep stood quietly inside free of timber. The habitat that is best for bighorn sheep is rugged terrain with a lot of slope, just like the hills surround Deadwood. But they were covered with trees which bighorns avoid. The Grizzly Gulch fire of 2002, that essentially took care of the job for wildlife managers and made really nice bighorn sheep habitat.

The sheep were an immediate success story, but then they began to die. Their numbers dwindled due to accidents with vehicles. One drowned. One was euthanized, but the majority that died, succumbed to mycoplasma ovipneumoiae, a pneumonia-causing bacteria that has decimated herds of bighorns throughout the West.

There was speculation that the same thing was going on in the Deadwood herd. But before testing could commence, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the opportunity.

However, Trenton Haffley, regional terrestrial resource supervisor for the GF&P, said it appears as if the herd has stabilized and even grown with this year’s lambs surviving so far.