DesertBighornSheep_Aoudad_Hernandez_Froylan_AlpineTX_15August2024_Reel4210.mp3

Froylan Hernandez [00:00:00] What is a challenge now, and it's a challenge because of the competition in space, but also because of the bacteria, is the invasive or the exotic species that's known as Barbary sheep, or also known as aoudad.

Froylan Hernandez [00:00:16] You know, they occur in every mountain in West Texas, and particularly in those mountain ranges that are considered historical bighorn range. There's aoudad in those mountain ranges, and recent research has demonstrated that we have detected that bacteria, that MOV bacteria, in aoudad that we've sampled...

Froylan Hernandez [00:00:39] Ironically, it was Texas Parks and Wildlife that brought them in, in the '50s. And they brought them in as an additional game species for public hunting opportunities. Although, you know, it was Parks and Wildlife that brought them in, I don't think anybody envisioned that the aoudad would do as well as they have. So, Parks and Wildlife had their hand in that. But also, there were also some private landowner stockings and releases. And so, the combination of those two, and the aoudad's ability to thrive in West Texas, you know, I guess, is a problem we currently face...

Froylan Hernandez [00:01:26] And it seems like they thrive in, well, not just the Trans-Pecos, but they thrive just about anywhere they go, because you'll see them up in the Caprock in the Panhandle of Texas. I know they're doing quite well there. They do well in the Texas Hill Country. You know, they're doing well there. So, the West Texas landscape, Panhandle landscape, and the Hill Country landscape are considerably different, but yet the animal is doing quite well in all three landscapes... But I don't think anybody envisioned that they would do as well as they have, but they really have thrived.

Froylan Hernandez [00:02:06] There was a time where we would say that the aoudad were a potential disease risk. And so, we've figured they were, but we didn't definitively know. And so, we started looking into that. And in several places, we would remove aoudad, collect those tissue samples and then submit them to the lab. And we have detected that MOV bacteria in some of those aoudad from which we've collected samples, you know, we've detected that MOV bacteria.

Froylan Hernandez [00:02:41] And so, that poses a grave, you know, a grave risk, a grave disease transmission risk, because we have sampled 13 mountain ranges within historical bighorn habitat and, granted, not all of those mountain ranges have bighorns on them, but they're bighorn habitat nonetheless. So, we've collected tissue samples from aoudad from those 13 mountain ranges, and every mountain range where we've sampled aoudad, we have detected that MOV bacteria...

Froylan Hernandez [00:03:14] So, we've got that issue, that disease transmission issue.

Froylan Hernandez [00:03:18] So, when we look ... at a potential release site, that has to be one of the things that's considered, or that goes into the equation: what is being done about the aoudad density, or the aoudad population, within a given mountain range?

Froylan Hernandez [00:03:36] And we have areas, we do that on our own properties: so, we lethally remove aoudad that are on Texas Parks and Wildlife property. And we have what's called the "zero tolerance" for aoudad. And so, we try and remove as many as we can and keep them at the lowest level possible on Texas Parks and Wildlife property.

Froylan Hernandez [00:03:57] We've got agreements with landowners that allow us to do that, when we fly bighorn surveys, they allow us to aerial gun and remove aoudad from those properties. But there's properties that allow us to do that, and they have restrictions. In other words, they say, "Shoot the ewes and the lambs. Don't shoot big rams." Because, you know, they hunt the big rams. And so, there's supplemental income for those landowners. And so, they tell us to do that.

Froylan Hernandez [00:04:23] So, there's, there's things being done to keep the aoudad population densities or numbers in check.

Froylan Hernandez [00:04:31] But the fact is there's way too many aoudad. And there's lots of properties that, you know, that nothing's being done. And so, you know, we're essentially fighting a, you know, fighting an uphill battle.