Evolution of ungulate capture techniques in California

When a great need, the right people, and the right tools come together, history is sometimes made. From the late 1970s through the late 1980s that happened in California. At that time there was a need to capture elk, then deer and pronghorn, then bighorn sheep-the "big game species"- in previously unprecedented numbers. The need focused primarily on translocation to re-establish populations in areas of historic range and to consolidate gains in lands available for wildlife conservation. These efforts also advanced wild ungulate research and management. The tools were helicopters, dart guns and new drugs, various ways to physically capture wildlife including net guns, and other advances in capture technology. The right people were a small group of California Department Fish and Game employees, contract pilots, graduate students, and a host of other agency personnel, friends and volunteers. The history they made lives on in the mountains, savannahs, deserts, and grasslands of California as a wildlife legacy of more elk, deer, pronghorn and bighorn that, with continued conservation, will pass from generation to generation of future Californians.