LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Reminiscent of the opening scene from the TV show ``M*A*S*H*,'' a team of wildlife biologists and volunteers run to meet a helicopter after the pilot carefully lowers three slings to the desert floor west of the River Mountains.

Instead of wounded soldiers, though, inside each baglike contraption is a plump, healthy desert bighorn sheep. Only minutes before, the bighorns had been darting across rocky ravines along the ridge on National Park Service land before they became ensnared in a net big enough to cover a pair of picnic tables.

The net had been shot from a special .308-caliber rifle by a gunner aboard the helicopter, 30 feet above.

A crewman on the ground slips blindfolds over their eyes and put hobbles on their legs to keep them subdued for the short flight to the base camp.

There, with the blades of the helicopter still whirling a safe distance away, three team members grab each sling holding a 70-pound ewe and carry them about 30 yards to a set of canvas-draped tables.

Veterinarians, big game biologists and a horde of assistants, inoculate them, extract blood samples, monitor their temperatures, swipe bacteria samples from the back of their mouths and clip yellow tags on their ears.

Collars equipped with either GPS signal transmitters or radio telemetry devices are put on some so biologists in Reno and Las Vegas can track their movements on computer screens after their release.

It was part of an effort to trap 25 bighorns from the boxed-in herd of River Mountains sheep and transport them to Lincoln County's Delamar Mountains, where a relocation effort has been under way since 1997.