-We move now to drought.

The federal government is forecasting alarmingly low water levels at Lake Mead.

We'll learn more about that ahead, but, first, a look at how drought is impacting Nevada's state animal, the desert bighorn sheep.

Historically, pneumonia has acted as one of their fiercest enemies.

But more recently, drought in the Muddy and Black Mountains near Valley of Fire State Park forced the state's animal to be moved out of state in a process known as translocation.

[helicopter whirring] Inside each of the bags you see dangling from that helicopter is a desert bighorn sheep.

(Joe Bennett) They probably feel like they're abducted by aliens.

-They're Nevada's state animal.

And on a hot morning in June, the day's long process of capturing and translocating more than 100 of them got underway at Valley of Fire State Park.

-You know, we do it in the summertime because it gives these sheep time to acclimate to their new home.

We're moving them to a latitude of Elko or Salt Lake City.

It'd be like me, throwing me in Canada in January.

-That's Joe Bennett, a Nevada Department of Wildlife staff specialist.

-They're flying around from that helicopter with the doors off.

What they'll do is they'll identify a group of sheep, and then they'll actually shoot a net gun over that sheep, and that wraps them up, and then the mugger will jump out of the helicopter, hobble them, blindfold them, take a temperature, inject, you know, a sedative.

- Nevada Week first spoke with Bennett near this same location in February.

That's when, for an unprecedented third year out of the last four, the state's wildlife department hauled water to the bighorn sheep here, depositing it in man made water developments called guzzlers.

-And I'll tell you, the worst day of my career was when we were flying bighorn sheep surveys in 2020.

And we flew over a guzzler in the West Muddys a few miles from here, and there were dead sheep at that water development because the guzzler was dry.

I hate saying that on camera, but I don't want to see that again.

-Which is why Bennett says this translocation is necessary, because even though the water hauls help, rainfall is still required to sustain the vegetation the sheep eat.

-The biggest issue is forage at this point.

So what I would say is, by removing sheep, you're actually going to see a positive response from the other sheep because there's less competition for resources or groceries.

-And Bennett says the 139 sheep that were removed stand to benefit as well.

-They're going to be in lush belly-high grass.

Like I wouldn't be surprised if in a year these sheep don't put on 30, 40 pounds.

-After the helicopter released the sheep, recording their weight was the first step these teams took before carrying them inside this tent for thorough evaluation.

In here is where veterinarians, volunteers, and biologists are all working together to collect samples--blood samples, fecal samples, nasal swabs, toncil swabs--all of this to determine whether these sheep have any diseases.

(Virginia Stout) The biggest risk factor for mortality or death is pneumonia.

A lot of herds have declined due to that bacteria, and we're trying to repopulate those areas.

-Virginia Stout is a wildlife veterinarian for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Once she and her staff determined that these bighorn sheep did not have pneumonia, they transported a portion of them back home.

-It's exciting to actually have the opportunity to have more sheep on the landscape and be able to move them around Utah.

-The other sheep went to the Tobin and Cortez Ranges in Northern Nevada.

Patrick Cummings was part of the crew that loaded them in the trailer to be towed there.

Let's start off with the scratch on your face.

-The scratch on my face?

-What happened?

(Patrick Cummings) I didn't-- It would have been, probably, in the trailer.

We've got some older rams.

They're heavier.

They can have an attitude.

-Cummings also serves as the president of the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, founded in 1964 in Las Vegas.

The nonprofit donated $100,000 to this capture and translocation.

The hunting company KUIU contributed $200,000.

(Brendan Burns) We only donate to projects that are creating or solidifying hunting opportunities.

The state's wildlife department estimates that this project cost $1.2 million in total.

Donations, excise taxes on guns and ammo, and hunting tags made up its funding.

-It's a lot more than just the hunting opportunity.

It's, it's potentially-- You know, I have a son who's 12 years old.

You do projects like this so someday he could potentially draw a tag.

-And while it may seem strange, wanting to hunt an animal that you're also trying to save-- -So conservation is a complicated thing.

- --subjecting it to stressors that could kill it-- -The rigors of capture.

It is an experience that is very difficult for any animal to endure.

- --Cummings says it's about resource management and population control.

-I do not like what the sheep have to go through.

I really don't.

But I think, in a broader sense, what it's going to do for the eastern segment of this desert bighorn population in the Muddy Mountains, on balance, it's a good thing.

-Cummings said this knowing that some of the sheep captured here would likely die.

-Capture myopathy, which is a catch-all term, really, that describes all the rigors of capture, can rear its ugly head when the animals are released weeks later.

So in other words, they're compromised.

They may not really look like it.

They may actually even get out of the trailer and run to everyone's satisfaction, but the animal has already sustained enough damage that it will succumb or be predisposed to where it can't evade predation.

-You're looking at video from the bighorn sheep's release in the Cortez Range.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife says two sheep ended up dying there, one from the repercussions of a broken leg, while a mountain lion killed the other.

In total, the department says 6 of the 139 sheep captured passed away.

That's a mortality rate of just 4% and the cost of conservation, says Cummings-- -They are special.

They are the iconic state animal, and there's not that many of them.

- --in order to stabilize the bighorn sheep populations that pneumonia has ravaged and prolonged drought now threatens.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife says it may haul more water to the guzzlers near Valley of Fire as soon as this month.