About Forests & People -- EARTH DAY ! ~Intermission ~ Newborn Bighorn

Newborn Bighorn
My Top Ten Wildlife Experiences, # 14

May 11, 1972

Fryingpan Ranger District, Whiteriver National Forest

Taylor Creek is a sprout off the Fryingpan River above Basalt, Colorado where the Fryingpan joins the the Roaring Fork River.  The Colorado Game and Fish has enclosed about 2000 acres of Taylor Creek within an eight foot high fence.  The purpose is to have a sanctuary for bighorn sheep where they can be free from lungworm disease.  Deer, elk and livestock are kept out.  The exclosure has been working for several years and there is a nice size heard of bighorns healthy and free from lungworm.

It is a great place to go to see bighorn social systems at work:  Fights between rams in breeding season, rams grouping-up away from ewes and lambs in winter; spring lambing season, and the ewe’s baby sitting system in summer.

The baby sitting system is fascinating to watch.  A group of 30 or more ewes put the lambs on steep rock cliff areas where the lambs are safe from predators.  The athletic lambs hop and skip all over those steep rocks and cliffs with no fear, having a fun time.  A few of the ewes stay with the lambs while others graze nearby areas where there are grasses and forbs.  Every once-in-a-while a ewe drifts over to one of the baby sitters and take over watch duty so that ewe can go browse.

On this day Wildlife Conservation Officer Chris Whitaker and I were hiking the area checking to see that the fence was in tact, looking for winter kill and seeing how the spring browse, forbs and grasses, were doing.  Snow was about gone, but it was definitely a day to be wearing a coat.  Chris had his black lab, a well disciplined dog.

The three of us had been hiking around the area for a few hours, it was late morning, we were coming down a small ridge with sage and bitterbrush on its top, Douglas fir and pine trees began just off the shoulders of the ridge and went down into the draws on either side.

The dog was about 20 feet ahead of us when he stopped to sniff.  He had found a baby bighorn sheep.  Chris instantly called the lab to his side.  The lamb stayed lying down warmly curled up.  We  stopped in our tracks and began backing away to avoid disturbing the ewe, but we couldn’t see her anywhere.   We knew we hadn’t  spooked her because the ridge was open and we would have seen her leave.  We finally decided the ewe must have gone for water.

So the three of us cautiously approached the lamb, we got close enough to see the umbilical cord was still pink and moist.  This lamb was really newborn!

The lab, always well behaved and not aggressive, approached the lamb to sniff it.  To this perceived threat the lamb wobbled up onto all four of its too long legs, then, as the lab backed up a step, the lamb reared on its back legs, front legs tucked under its chest, head cocked, eyes focused on the dogs head, it came down striking with its future horns at the black enemy!

WOW!!  We immediately backed away, the lamb curled up to wait the return of mom and we left the area.

With us we took a new definition of courage and better understanding of wild instinct.     Jerry Covault