36: Bighorn Sheep

I write to you from Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne land. I am interested in learning about the different animals that live in the place where I was born. I want to mention that biological classification as taught by western science has its roots in racism, sexism, and transphobia – here’s a good explainer about why.

We’re going to start with some beautiful Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) footage:

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Next, we’re going to talk about the opening of the Wikipedia article on them, which says, “The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. [emphasis mine]”

I mean, yes, I guess that is probably why they are named that.

Ok, so, how large are we talking? Well, the curled horns on a male can weigh 30 lbs on a 300+ lb animal – so roughly 1/10 of the body weight is horns. The females are about half that size and have short, near vertical horns. The males grow the horns around eight years of age and retain them throughout their lives. They also have specialized hooves with rough soles that allow them to grip precarious mountainsides.

Bighorn sheep came across the Bering Land Bridge during the Ice Age, around 750,000-600,000 years ago. They are the largest

According to Rocky Mountain National Park, “Their digestive system acts as a survival mechanism. A complex, four-part stomach allows sheep to gain important nutrients from hard, dry forage. They eat large amounts of vegetation quickly and then retreat to cliffs or ledges. Here they can thoroughly rechew and digest their food away from possible predators.”

Much like so many of our big mammals, the arrival of Europeans saw the population of bighorn sheep in Colorado and the rest of the western USA plummet. Environmental protections, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, have helped to restore them, but they still seem to have some grievances with the colonial settlers of the region.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the region, the Native people here hunted the sheep and used their hides for clothing and shelter. You can listen to a variety of modern Native voices on this topic here.

Bighorn sheep feature in Native rock art carved into the rust red sandstone that abounds in western Colorado and Eastern Utah. Here’s some petroglyphs you can see depicting them in Arches National Park. If you want to read more about bighorn sheep petroglyphs in Colorado, I recommend this paper about them in the Dolores River Valley, one of the first places I ever did archaeology.

By the way, when I was first looking around for info on bighorn sheep, Google suggested that I might be interested in the topic “mountain animals with horns” and I fell down quite a rabbit hole and highly recommend you google “Markhor”.