EUREKA – State wildlife biologists have captured 32 members of a herd of bighorn sheep that live both in Montana and Canada and given them health checkups.
The sheep were lured in with hay and captured Thursday under nets on the Woods Ranch Wildlife Management Area near Eureka.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks program manager Neil Anderson says the sheep were blindfolded before wildlife biologists drew blood and collected nasal and tonsil swabs to test for respiratory pathogens and various bacteria.
The animal disease lab at Washington State University will have the results in about two weeks.
Health tests are planned for bighorn sheep in other areas, while sheep near Paradise were captured last month in a research effort to learn more about how diseases such as pneumonia function in bighorn sheep populations.