ND Game & Fish Making Three Bighorn Sheep Licenses Available

Biologists counted 77 rams in a summer population survey, 12 fewer than last year and 27 fewer than 2016.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) _ North Dakota’s Game and Fish Department is making only three bighorn sheep hunting licenses available this year, as deadly bacterial pneumonia continues to impact the western Badlands population.

Biologists counted 77 rams in a summer population survey, 12 fewer than last year and 27 fewer than 2016.

The outbreak first detected four years ago killed about three dozen sheep, leading Game and Fish to cancel the fall hunting season in 2015 for the first time in more than three decades.

The agency reinstated hunting the following year with eight licenses, but last year issued only five as disease spread to three previously unaffected herds.

A population survey that was completed in March counted 265 bighorns, the smallest population since 2006.