Managing wildlife sometimes means weighing the value of one species against another in order for the more threatened of the two to survive. This is the case in New Mexico, where state game managers were able to remove desert bighorn sheep from the state's endangered species list, in part, by reducing a robust mountain lion population.
New Mexico classified the desert bighorn as endangered in 1980, when barely 50 animals remained in a state where it's likely thousands once roamed.
Recovery efforts included an aggressive transplant program in which more than 350 captive-bred bighorn were released in a handful of mountain ranges - and a study that concluded the biggest threat to the sheep came from mountain lions.
The solution? Allow hunters to kill about 3 lions per year in each mountain range where the sheep reside. As a result, depredation has fallen by more than 70%.
Efforts to reintroduce bighorn sheep to places they formerly ranged have also taken place in other southwestern states, often with the fundraising support of hunting groups. Recently bighorns were brought back to the Santa Catalina Mountains outside Tucson, where biologists have been pleased to see they've been reproducing.
Today, more than 600 desert bighorn scramble across 6 New Mexico mountain ranges. The sheep's recovery marks the first time state wildlife officials removed a species from the list due to their recovery efforts - an example of what can happen when a wildlife balancing act meets its goal.