The Long Arm of Liberty Wildlife

On the 16th of November, Jan, Alison, and Laura went down to a field north of Yuma to aid Arizona Game & Fish and the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Association in their 100th roundup. Eleven ewes and two rams were netted from helicopters and transported to the site where the volunteers were waiting to process the sheep. They were each measured, tagged and collared while blood, hair, and other samples were obtained. In the brief time they were on the stretchers being examined, they were given oxygen, treated for minor abrasions obtained in the capture, and kept cool with buckets of water. After the examination and cataloguing, they were placed in a truck for transport to the Big Horn Mountains near Tonopah. The aim is to strengthen the gene pool of wandering herds of bighorns to help the species survive and propagate. All three Liberty volunteers were in the thick of things as the sheep arrived two at a time, some inside the choppers, some slung beneath on a cable. Obtaining samples, monitoring temperatures, and administering oxygen, Jan, Alison and Laura were much appreciated by the vets and state officials. The sheep spent the night in the transport truck and were released on schedule the next morning.
A scene from M*A*S*H Sheep in a bag	Sling arrival
Jan administers O2	Sheep equipment
Team Liberty in action!	Dental records
Four days later, Liberty volunteers Joe and Claudia went down to a school south of Marana. School officials had contacted Claudia earlier in the year about a pair of great horned owls that kept unsuccessfully trying to nest in a palm tree in the school courtyard. The owls, who don't build their own nests but appropriate the nests of other large birds or simply lay their eggs in any handy cavity, have been trying to make a home on the stumps of trimmed fronds about 30 feet up one of the palm trees in the courtyard of the school. This never quite left enough room for fast-growing baby great horneds, and if the eggs didn't fall out onto the ground below, the baby owls did. Joe built a platform to fit the tree and a nest to attach to it. As several kids and adults watched from below, a tree trimmer was hired to climb the tree and install the nest under Joe's direction. The platform and nest were hoisted up and banded to the tree in the owl's favorite place and the hope is, when they return to nest again in a few weeks, the schoolchildren will be able to watch the family from a safe distance. If the nest gets used, we'll go back down to get some more photos!
Joe gives the plan in Marana	The "peanut gallery"
The platform is raised	Climbing the tree
Just add owls...	The nest goes up
There have been other long-distance activities performed by Liberty volunteers in recent months, and with the growth of the human population, along with the corresponding growth of Liberty Wildlife, there will undoubtedly be more in the future.