The state Game Commission is expected to discuss a plan to reintroduce desert bighorn sheep in the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico.
The commission will meet Thursday in Alamogordo. The daylong agenda includes the sheep proposal.
The Game and Fish Department first proposed expanding the desert bighorn population in the area in May 2013. The commission amended the rules later that year to help with the reduction of Barbary sheep as part of the reintroduction plan.
Department officials are expected to update the commission on their progress.
Biologists estimate there were at least 745 desert bighorn throughout six mountain ranges in 2013. That's more than double the number just a decade before.
Desert bighorn were removed from the state's threatened and endangered species list in 2011.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.