BIG-HORN OR MOUNTAIN SHEEP.
By: F. W. Schmoe

For some time there has been a question in the mind of the Naturalist as to whether or not mountain sheep were ever found on Mount Rainier.

I have talked with Yakima Indians who have hunted in what is now the park and they told me that some thirty or forty years ago, there were a few sheep to be found on the mountain. I have found however that the Indians designated both the sheep and the goat by the same name so I am not certain that it was not the white mountain goat they refered to. Goat have always been, and still are, quite abundant on the mountain.

Len Longmire was telling me recently that "Old Indian Jim" killed a sheep about 1890 on the Cowlitz. Mr. Longmire saw the animal but he was not sure exactly where it had been killed.

The only definate record that I have been able to secure was of a sheep (Ovis canadensis californicus) taken in Yakima County "Near Mount Adams", and now in the National Museum. The record bears the date 1912. Mount Adams is about fifty miles to the southeast of Mount Rainier and the country is very similar in type, so it is very likely that sheep found about Mount Adams would also be found on Rainier.

However none of the old settlers remember seeing sheep on the mountain so far as I have been able to learn. We would be glad to secure some data on the subject.