Due to a drop in bighorn sheep numbers, there will only be one either-sex and one ewe license offered for Hunting District (HD) 622 for the 2025 season. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) announced the reduced license quota this week in an effort to keep the current herd healthy and sustainable.

FWP believes the decline in bighorn sheep in HD 622 may be due to disease. Back in September of 2024, hunters reported seeing “unhealthy sheep” in the hunting district, and the five 2024 ram license holders reporting 80% fewer bighorn sheep than hunters in prior years, according to a news release. 

FWP and landowners in the area also echoed similar observations. 

HD 622 is located in the Missouri Breaks – an area with a lengthy history of healthy and thriving bighorn sheep. A bighorn sheep license for this area is considered “coveted” in Montana. While 40 live bighorn sheep were sampled for both Mycoplasma Ovipneumoniae and Mannheimia Haemolytica (respiratory diseases that affect wild sheep) during 2017-2018, with results finding the animals “relatively healthy,” between 2018 and 2023, the population tanked with numbers below objective. 

In response, FWP reduced both ram and ewe licenses.

Additional samples were collected and tested, but without any conclusive evidence that respiratory pathogens were to blame for the decrease in bighorn sheep in HD 622. However, during the 2024 season, samples collected from hunter-harvested sheep found two bighorn sheep with signs of respiratory disease and “heavy loads of lungworm,” according to the agency. 

Results from further samples are still pending. FWP also plans to conduct aerial surveys soon to observe herd health and will report those findings once available.

Should anyone see a sick bighorn sheep or one that may have recently died, FWP requests that they contact either Thomas Sutton at 406-417-1270 or Aaron O’Harra at 406-594-9918.

Montana’s bighorn sheep application deadline is May 1.