The Idaho bighorn tag was purchased by Bill Havens of Farmington, New Mexico, who indicated he intends to hunt Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in the Middle Fork of the Salmon River country.

The tag allows the holder to hunt any open sheep unit in the state. The exception is that the tag is only good in Unit 11 on Craig Mountain every other year. On the off years, the unit is open to the winner of a raffle tag, raffled by the Idaho chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.

The Alberta auction tag sold for $250,000, Washington's tag brought $49,500 and the Oregon tag sold for $74,000.

Last year, the Idaho tag drew a winning bid of $80,000 from pro football Hall of Famer Ron Skoronski. Fish and Game sheep program manager Dale Toweill noted that the tag tends to bring a higher price every other year when the hunter can use it in Hells Canyon. For all the interest in bighorns, sale of tags brings in relatively little money to fund sheep programs, Toweill said, so the addition of auction and raffle money is especially important.

Money raised by the auction and raffle finances transplants of bighorn sheep in Hells Canyon and funds disease research. The department plans to introduce sheep from Montana into the canyon this month. Toweill said the bighorn population has grown to about 800 in Hells Canyon, and that the sheep have been doing well in recent years. The area could accommodate about 3,000 bighorns.