Today, we would be starting a four-day desert bighorn sheep transplant operation. The herd along the San Juan River corridor now numbered 160 sheep, enough to make it possible for some of the animals' relocation. Any more than their current number and the habitat would be overgrazed. Unlike bighorn in some areas of the American Southwest, this rare indigenous herd seems to be healthy and thriving. Over the past century, bighorn habitat has been reduced by competition from domestic livestock. Wild sheep are particularly vulnerable to disease contracted from neighboring domestic sheep, pneumonia being the most common. Biologists speculate that the desert bighorn sheep along the San Juan River corridor seem to have built up some sort of disease resistance to the nearby presence of their domestic cousins. Or it may simply be that pneumonia is contracted by nose-to-nose contact, and thus far, there has been minimal transference of the disease.

Nike and Dave track the herd's movements through the sheep's radio collars, observing them during the rutting season, witnessing birthing ewes caring for their lambs, and noting the herd's ever-increasing numbers each spring. It's one of those dirty jobs that someone has to do. Lazily floating down the San Juan River in the spring, or perched high on the red sandstone cliffs above the river bottom, watching bighorn foraging hundreds of feet below through their binoculars. For Dave, this is a second career, having retired from the National Park Service after 30 years where he worked as a wildlife biologist in Rocky Mountain National Park. Nike has her Ph.D. in wildlife biology from Colorado State University and has worked as a research biologist for several federal agencies. Married 18 years, studying the sheep is a shared passion.

The bitter cold weather of mid-winter was chosen for the timing of the capture as it is less stressful for the sheep than hot weather; and the ewes, though pregnant, had not lambed yet. The biologists planned to capture 30 sheep from along the San Juan River and move them to the south side of Lake Powell. Nike and Dave would be in charge of the project. They had spent most of the previous week busily preparing for this transplant operation. Laid out on their living room floor, they carefully bagged an assortment of ear tags, ID micro-chips, and colored radio collars. Each sheep would be given a different colored collar and ear tags so they can be recognized from a distance.

When Nike asked for volunteers, I readily signed on. There was a limited selection of jobs. Mostly she needed sheep handlers, a crew that would control the sheep during their processing. She also needed a data recorder, for which my neighbor, Ann Brabrook, volunteered. Ann's husband, Bob, had worked as a veterinarian on the Navajo reservation for a few years while she worked alongside him as a vet technician. She would fit right in.

Me? That presented a dilemma. "What about someone to be the project photographer?" I had asked, thinking I could take 35-mm photos with my 35-year-old Pentax SLR camera. "That would be great! Dave and I generally don't have much time to take photographs during these operations. You can use Dave's 10.2 pixel digital camera." Afterward, I smacked my forehead, realizing that I had now obligated myself to learn how to operate a digital camera. I had only days to learn how to use Dave's camera - and my new, still-in-its-box digital camera, which came in a package deal with my new computer. Being a digital dinosaur, the pressure was on.

With this morning's break in the weather, the transplant operation was a "go." I tossed a couple of flakes of alfalfa in the feed barrel and hurried back to the house to get my gear and a thermos of hot tea. It was going to be a long, cold day.

The parking lot looked like a used government-vehicle sale yard as I pulled my truck into the staging area in the shadow of Mexican Hat Rock. I noted the logos on the vehicle doors: Navajo Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Navajo Department of Agriculture - Veterinarian Services, the Navajo Natural Heritage Program, Arizona Department of Game and Fish, Arizona Desert Bighorn Society, Inc. A large flatbed truck sat along the edge of the staging area containing eight wood crates, each weighing 350 lbs. and able to hold up to three sheep. Four pickups sat tailgate to tailgate. Specially constructed patient litters, each with four leg holes sewn into the canvas, stretched across the tailgates like some sort of jury-rigged wilderness emergency room, awaiting the first chopper-load of patients to arrive.
We stood in the cold morning air, a v
igorous wind making it even colder than the 24 degrees registered on my truck's thermostat. A biologist from the Navajo Nation shouted out, "Where are the handlers?" A group quickly gathered around him to receive their instructions. "Watch their legs when they are in the litter. You don't want to get kicked, unless you want your voice raised an octave or two. One of you needs to hold the horns. When we move to the crates, on the count of three drop the litter to the ground and shove the animal in the crate."

Just then someone yelled out, "The helicopter's coming!" Two dozen people converged on the staging area to await its arrival. The helicopter swooped in low over the ridge, just south of Mexican Hat Rock. Two bags hung from the belly of the ship. The pilot, a New Zealander working for Pathfinder Helicopter Wildlife Management out of Salt Lake City, dropped in over the snowy field in front of us, hovered momentarily, and gently set the two bagged sheep down on the ground. The line was released and the ship moved swiftly away to land and refuel.

It suddenly became a scene out of an army M.A.S.H. unit, the ground crew racing to the landing zone with their litters. The specially designed brilliant-blue bags were quickly unlaced and the sheep were lifted out and placed on the litters, still hobbled and blindfolded. The crews carried the animals to the trucks where each of the litters was suspended between two truck tail gates. As the hobbles were removed from their legs, one handler held onto the sheep's horns. The other handlers carefully, but firmly, directed each leg through a hole in the litter. The sheep's legs and feet now dangled in the air, kicking, looking for purchase.

With the animals fully immobilized, the medical personnel approached and took over the next stage of the processing. Dr. Scott Bender, a veterinarian with the Navajo Department of Agriculture based in Chinle, Ariz., worked like a man used to crisis situations, moving swiftly from one procedure to the next, quietly giving the handlers direction as needed. Bender inserted a needle in the sheep's neck aiming for a vein to draw blood. Some of the blood samples would be provided to Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., for a sheep DNA testing study. The remainder would be frozen and kept on hand for various research requests.

When he finished with the blood, Bender inserted a specially designed metal tongue depressor down the sheep's throat to take a swab sample, followed by a quick dab from its nose. The swab would be analyzed to determine the presence of either pneumonia or sinusitis. Sinusitis is a disease caused by nose bots, and like pneumonia, is also contracted from contact with domestic sheep. Bender finished his procedures by implanting an identification micro-chip under the skin in the sheep's head, carefully positioned between the horn and ear.

Assisting Bender was Dr. Robert Heyl, a physician from Cortez who volunteered his services for the day, a constant grin on his face, unable to hide his excitement about being a participant in this rare opportunity. He, too, handled the sheep as efficiently as if they were his average office patients, smoothly giving one injection after another in the sheep's rump. A total of five shots would protect the sheep from 14 different diseases. As the doctors finished their work, other assistants sprayed each sheep's ear for ticks, and attached ear tags and radio collars. While the animals awaited each step, the handlers became bighorn whisperers, gently holding the animals, quietly talking to them, leaning close and stroking their bristley taupe-colored coats to calm them. The medical process was now complete and each had been collared, micro-chipped, and ear-tagged. The last step was to safely load them into the awaiting crates.

The frenzied mania of the last 15 minutes abruptly died down. We stood around in the frigid cold with our gloved hands stuffed in our pockets, some of us ducking behind trucks to shelter ourselves from the icy wind. Sheep jokes were tossed back and forth. We waited.

At times we could hear the helicopter in the river canyon to the south of us, looking for more sheep. This part of the capture posed the greatest risk. The pilot flew with the ship's doors removed. He was accompanied by two assistants or sheep muggers. One mugger with his leg perched on the ship's skid for balance, served as the net gunner, using a rifle to shoot a fine-meshed net over the sheep below. When the animal was spotted, the pilot dropped the ship down into the canyon and aerially directed the sheep to an area where it could be safely netted, hobbled, blindfolded, and bagged before sling-lining it out of the canyon bottom and back to our staging area.

Sometimes the pilot was unable to land to unload his muggers. As one skid hit the ground, the crew had seconds to bail out before the helicopter lifted off again. They approached the netted sheep, placing a blindfold over its head. This immediately had a calming effect on the struggling animal, enabling the mugger to hobble all four feet together. The animal was then laced into the long-line bag to transport it out of the canyon.

The second helicopter load brought in three sheep, followed by two sets of four each. With the second set of four, the pilot flew in four healthy looking adult rams with large curled horns. Bighorn paparazzi swarmed around the operating area like buzzing gnats as the crew worked, trying to capture a few stereotypical trophy shots - but with one exception. These rams were alive. With luck, they wouldn't end up as quarry for one of the three permitted hunts that the Navajo Nation awards each year. One permit goes to a tribal member and the other two are sold. These latter two permits fund the transplant operation and the biologists' continuing study of the reservation herd. A few sacrificed for the good of the others.

By early afternoon, the winds had increased the chill factor and it was beginning to take its toll on the crew. As the last sling-line of sheep came over the ridge, the helicopter was swaying in the gusting wind, almost staggering to the landing zone with the bags of heavy sheep swinging pendulously underneath. It was time to call it a day.
Twenty-two sheep were gathered the first day. Another eight remained to be captured and processed in the next few days. That night the animals would be driven south to Kayenta, Ariz., and held overnight in their crates. At daybreak they would be driven out to Lake Powell where the helicopter would sling-line each crate 11 miles to the sheep's release site. A new herd would now be established, security against a die-off that could otherwise extirpate the herd.

It had been a long and brutally cold day. The crew was chilled to the bone and my thermos of hot tea was emptied. Time to call it a wrap.