Bighorn Sheep

Posted on November 14, 2003 in Creatures Zoos

Once, when I was taking my niece around the Los Angeles Zoo, we passed the Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep exhibit. A male of prodigious proportions hopped up the mock pinnacle as we approached in the company of two boys and their father. One of the boys (he was maybe 12) took one look at the ram’s obvious apparatus and exclaimed “Wow! Look at the nuts on that thing!”*

I have never seen a bighorn in the wild. Together with a sighting of pronghorn antelope, it remains an elusive thrill for me. We have them here in California in the steep San Gabriels and many desert ranges. The Desert Bighorn doesn’t pack the visual and physical punch of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn. They are said to be smaller, more the size of pygmy goats.

My closest encounters with the feral sheep have been through the eyes of those who saw them and left a record on the rock. Nearly everywhere you see rock art in the West, you see bighorns. I collect bighorn related artwork: panels modeled after petroglyphs and a Mexican wood carving are treasured pieces in my collection. (My house would drive orderly aesthetes mad — I like “junk”). When someone calls me a sheep, I remind them of bighorns and the power that a 200 pound ram delivers in a charge.

There have been bighorns resident in the places where I have hiked recently, but I have not seen them. They are a rare sight, often unnoticed even if present. Suction pad hooves allow them to scale cliffs that I would need a full set of rock climbing gear to ascend. Bighorn do not revel in the beauty of their horns and hides. They do not call attention to themselves. It’s possible that they’ve seen me in the deserted places as I walk blindly past them, believing the rocks that press on me devoid of large life.

Before I die, I wish to have the vision once.

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* My niece was too young to understand. When I told her mother later, she burst out laughing like we did. They were impressive.