A Crow Indian legend tells the story about evil spirits that possess a man who tries to do away with a rightful heir by shoving the youth off a cliff. The young man lands in a patch of cedar trees and is rescued by seven bighorn sheep led by the chief of the bighorns, Big Metal (the animal had metal hooves). Out of respect for his rescuers the boy took the name Big Iron. When Big Iron grew to manhood, his people observed that he had unusual powers—keen eyes, a fine sense of humor, and a sharp mind. He became a good warrior. Big Iron outlived four generations of his own people. Before he died he told them he desired to be buried next to the Big Horn River (Montana), because his father, the sheep, would come for him. Today, thousands of visitors come to Bighorn Canyon, drawn by the waters of the lake, the river, and the legend.
If you’ve ever seen a bighorn sheep in the wild, you understand how this poetic animal could be so admired by ancestral people. They are regal in appearance, masterful on rocky heights, and invoke wonder in most observers. They are tough, competitive and mysterious. There are three subspecies of bighorn sheep: Rocky Mountain, Sierra Nevada, and Desert. All three have similar characteristics and behavior, but only the desert bighorns are able to go for extended periods without water.
Desert bighorns were once native to West Texas; you can find ancient petroglyphs out there. The sheep historically occupied some 16 mountain ranges in the Trans-Pecos region of our state. Texas had as many as 2,500 animals prior to 1880. Like with the Indian tribes, that all changed with hordes of European settlers. Unregulated hunting and competition for food and water from ranching domestic sheep and goats were significant factors. Moreover, diseases from domestic sheep and goats raged through bighorn herds while net-wire fencing stopped them from free-range movement in search of food and water. By the mid-1940’s desert bighorns had disappeared from much of their native mountain ranges and by the early 1960’s they had been completely extirpated.
Despite this evidence of no sign of intelligent life in those early days, the state’s been diligently trying to bring the sheep back. It’s taken 80 years to restore the bighorn population to what it was before the wool industry moved into the state. And there’s still a long way to go. Wildlife officials aim to repopulate the original range with about 3,000 bighorns. As of July 25, 2024, there were about 1,500 bighorns in Texas, greatly in part due to decades of work by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, various state agencies including Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, as well as wildlife conservation groups such as Texas Bighorn Society, Wild Sheep Foundation and Dallas Safari Club.
Lest you get the misleading idea that bringing back the population is an easy task, consider this: Each attempt involves introducing sheep from another environment into a selected range in West Texas. That means the sheep had to be individually captured in nets and blindfolded. Then, they were typically flown via helicopter to a place where researchers could take samples and fit them with radio collars. Next, they take a long drive—all the ewes together in one trailer, while the rowdier rams had to be separated into their own wooden boxes—to their designated release site. A lot of work!
As mentioned, desert bighorns are impressive animals. About the size of a mule deer, adult males (rams) weigh between 125-200 pounds and can run with a top speed near 30 mph. Female bighorns (ewes) are smaller. Both sexes grow horns soon after birth and they continue growing throughout their lives. Ram horns are larger, so much so that they curl around each side of the face and can separately weigh as much as 30 lbs.—as much as the rest of the bones in the male’s body. As bighorns age, they develop rings on their horns, similar to growth rings around a tree. Male horns can grow over three feet long with a more than a one-foot circumference at the base. Known as brooming, older rams will often file down their horns on rocks and break pieces off, so that they have an unobstructed view of predators using their wide set, amber eyes. Ewes’ horns are smaller and lighter. Both rams and ewes will use their horns to break open a barrel cactus to get to its nutrient-rich pulp.
Males depart their mother’s group around two to four years of age and join a group of rams. This can be a tough time of wandering until the young rams find a male group, and they will sometimes take up with other species out of loneliness. But from July to October, mother nature brings them together for the breeding season. This is when those big horns come into play. To compete for females, rams battle for dominance by charging head-on, crashing their horns together at top speed. The impact makes a resounding “crack” that can be heard as far away as a mile. This has got to be one of the dumbest testosterone-driven displays of male behavior in the animal kingdom! Older rams exhibit considerable horn damage after a few years of these contests, which keep up until somebody finally submits and quits. Most of the characteristic horn-clashing between rams occurs during the pre-rut period, although this behavior may occur to a limited extent throughout the year.
After mating, gestation lasts about six months, with lambs typically born in late winter. The timing coincides with the greening of plants during the spring months. Lambing sites are usually nestled high up in the mountains in obscure rocky enclaves. Even in favorable conditions, a bighorn lamb has a less than 50 percent chance of surviving its first summer. If lambs are fortunate enough to make it to adulthood, they can live an average of 10-14 years.
Each animal is a masterpiece of adaptation to their environment. They graze on many different kinds of plants but prefer green grass if it can be found. In the arid Chihuahuan Desert they supplement their diet with various scrub plants, including cacti. With a complex nine-stage digestive system, they can get maximum nutrition from many sedges and forbs. Desert bighorns have evolved to thrive in the harsh desert with body temperatures capable of fluctuating several degrees. During the day they stay near trees and caves seeking shade to avoid the hot Texas sun. They use rainwater collected in temporary rock pools without visiting water sources. They possess the remarkable ability to lose up to 30 percent of their body weight and still survive, quickly recovering after having a big drink. Their hooves are sharp-edged, elastic and concave allowing them to scoot up a mountainside with ease or navigate cliff faces using ledges as narrow as two inches. They can jump 20-foot crevasses like Spiderman and get away from coyotes, mountain lions or other predators.
Now we address the paradoxical double-edged sword of sport hunting. It’s a complicated soup. The state’s program to repopulate bighorn sheep in Texas is funded mostly from hunting revenues. Hunting permits are issued for the Public Bighorn Hunt and Texas Grand Slam, as well as for state, public and private properties. Call me crazy, but its strangely oxymoronic to shoot bighorns and then use hunters’ license fees to ensure there’s enough bighorns to shoot in the future. But that’s exactly what we do!
To make matters worse, we imported a non-native species of sheep from the mountain ranges of Africa in the 1950’s to give hunters something else to shoot. The aoudad (barbary sheep) is a much larger animal than the bighorn sheep and it has no natural predators in Texas. It’s nearly impossible for a mountain lion, for example, to bring down a healthy adult aoudad—which means their population is growing out of control. If you’ve ever been around Fort Davis State Park, you’ve undoubtedly seen barbary sheep. They are outcompeting the bighorns for food, water and shelter. That’s why TPWD and the Borderlands Research Group at Sul Ross State University are studying methods to control the growing aoudad population in Far West Texas. What’s the best way to get rid of them? Why shoot them, of course! There you have it—full circle firing squad. Problem is, we most efficiently shoot sheep from helicopters—which has its own issues with the non-hunting public. Sticky, huh?
Bighorns, sadly, aren’t the only species we’ve extirpated in Texas during the bad ole days. Our interaction with the Earth and nature has been one first as perpetrators, and then finally as victims, as we scurry to fix what we’ve broken. You may go your entire life without ever seeing a bighorn—but if you’re ever shoved off a cliff someday, perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to be saved by the descendants of Big Metal!
By Larry Gfeller