Monday, March 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The Nevada Division of Wildlife is exploring a plan to introduce desert bighorn sheep onto the Nevada Test Site, where they would be protected from hunters.
The sheep moved from Europe and Asia across the Bering land bridge about 750,000 years ago into North America, explained Craig Stevens of the Division of Wildlife.
The bighorns lived on every mountain range in Nevada until the 1960s, when hunters and drought trimmed them to the southern and central parts of the state, he said.
The state is talking with the U.S. Department of Energy about relocating sheep to the Test Site, a federally protected range 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas that once hosted nuclear weapons experiments. A nuclear testing moratorium took effect in 1992.
Sportsmen's dollars pay for the relocation and watering of Nevada's sheep, Stevens said.
About 1,800 sheep have been captured by state officials and relocated in Nevada, Utah, Texas and Colorado, he said.
Stevens introduced the idea Wednesday to the Citizens Advisory Board, a group of interested people overseeing post-Cold War activities at the Test Site.
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