I was a passenger in a minivan as it was winding its way through Valley of Fire Park State Park in southern Nevada recently; and as the temperature reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside — yes, the air was a dry heat and not humid — I was treated to the sight of a few desert bighorn sheep.
Sunday Morning Photograph May 8 2022: Desert Bighorn Sheep in Nevada.
One bighorn sheep stood alone on a massive rock — almost as though it were heralding our arrival while simultaneously standing guard.
Unlike the bighorn sheep which I spotted as I was hiking along the trail of Capitol Gorge in Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah one cool sunny day a couple of years ago, most of the ones which I saw in Nevada had smaller horns, as desert bighorn sheep are a subspecies of bighorn sheep.
As the official mammal of the state of Nevada, desert bighorn sheep are considered “sensitive” to extinction by the Bureau of Land Management of the United States.
The main distinction of desert bighorn sheep when compared to other subspecies of bighorn sheep is that they can go for extended periods of time without drinking water as they adapted over time to the hot arid environment of the Mojave Desert.
Native to North America, desert bighorn sheep occupied the land from southwestern Canada to northwestern Mexico — but their numbers had dwindled significantly over the decades due to such contributing factors as the destruction and decreased area of their natural habitat, excessive hunting of the animals, usurpation of watering areas and critical range by human activities, and diseases which were contracted from domestic livestock — particularly domestic sheep.
The population of desert bighorn sheep — which was as few as an estimated 6,700 animals back in the 1960s — has rejuvenated somewhat in recent decades to approximately 26,800 animals; but the numbers are nowhere close to those of 200 years ago.
Final Boarding Call
I enjoy watching wildlife in their natural habitat — but sometimes desert bighorn sheep are in artificial environments created by humans due to their encroachment on their shrinking natural habitat. Thankfully, several areas of the United States have been officially designated to protect desert bighorn sheep from further erosion of both their population and natural habitat.
Please click here for a complete list of the Sunday Morning Photograph series of articles at The Gate.
All photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
