Bighorn Sheep
(Ovis Canadensis)

The desert Bighorn is one of the most distinctive and easily recognized desert animals. Although both males and females have horns, it is the massive curled horns of the males that give bighorns their name. A full curl, which can measure over 30 inches from base to tip, takes seven to eight years to grow.

While you are not likely to forget a sighting of a Bighorn, it is a picture usually reserved for the more adventurous hiker who climbs up into the desert ranges in search of this timid species. They generally vacate regions of human activity, preferring an isolated existence far removed from people.

Their ability to traverse rocky terrain is legendary. Sheep are confident of their remarkable climbing skills, and use them as their chief means of escape from predators.

Another survival technique is a digestive system which enables them to make use of food that other animals avoid. Sheep must often browse on dry, hard, abrasive plant material of poor quality. Their complex nine-stage digestive process allows them to maximize removal of nutrients from food of marginal quality.

Bighorn do not require drinking water in winter when green vegetation is available. During the summer months they visit waterholes at least every three days. This adaptation allows Bighorns to spend very little time at waterholes, minimizing their exposure to predators.

Bighorns can live 10 to 15 years. Males (Rams) weigh 140 to over 220 pounds, females (Ewes) 75 to 130 pounds. Females breed at 2 ½ years. One and occasionally two lambs are born in May or June, following a gestation period of 6 months.

Bighorn sheep are frequently depicted in Southwest petroglyphs and pictographs. They were widespread throughout western North America, and prized by native peoples for their meat, hides, and horns.

Excessive hunting after European settlement, introduced diseases, competition with domestic, introduced, and feral animals, and loss of habitat have decimated bighorn populations. By the 1920’s, few remained. Efforts are currently underway to reintroduce bighorns to many of their former habitats - rocky terrain throughout the Southwest.

Recent (1994) estimates put the number of Bighorn Sheep in or near the preserve at between 680 and 1075 animals or more.