Peace Garden News

The North Dakota Game and Fish Department conducted its annual bighorn sheep survey, revealing a slight decline in the population compared to the previous year's record numbers. The latest survey, which involved recounting lambs in March, identified at least 350 bighorn sheep, marking a 4% decrease from 2023 figures but standing 6% above the five-year average.

The survey data indicated the presence of 105 rams, 199 ewes, and 46 lambs in the western North Dakota grasslands. Excluded from these figures were approximately 40 bighorn sheep residing in the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and those introduced to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in 2020.

Brett Wiedmann, the department's big game biologist, expressed satisfaction with the population levels: "We were encouraged to see adult rams and adult ewes near record numbers."

While the northern badlands population saw a 4% decrease from 2023, it remained at its second highest count on record. Conversely, the southern badlands population experienced a slight increase but remained around its lowest level since the species was reintroduced in the area in 1966.

Wiedmann attributed the drop in lamb recruitment, which was 21% lower than in 2023, to factors unrelated to disease. He suggested that drought, predation, and the recuperation needs of ewes after several years of high recruitment may have contributed.

"Our state’s females have invested a lot of energy in rearing lambs the last four years, so sometimes they just need to take a break and concentrate on improving body condition," Wiedmann stated.

The department conducts its surveys by counting and classifying all visible bighorn sheep in late summer and performing a recount of lambs in the following March to assess recruitment.