California Bighorn Sheep ~ Visiting Sun Rivers ~ Kamloops, BC

Sunny autumn days offer some beautiful sights to see in our city of  Kamloops and the California Bighorn (also called Sierra Nevada) sheep are no exception.  They’ve made their way to Sun Rivers Golf Resort community for their annual pilgrimage to their Fall grazing ground once again and are making themselves right at home.

California Bighorn sheep going for their sunny afternoon stroll

On a recent visit to the area, we found them wandering up the street and quite oblivious to the traffic and noises of the residents.  When I did park and get out of the car, some watched where I was going and appeared to be curious but not enough to come over to my side of the road.

This California Bighorn is seen running across the golf course to join the others

The green grass of the golf course as well as the planted flowers and shrubs seem to be the perfect diet so is of great interest and are what they come for as winter nears.  They prefer to be near rocky cliffs seen nearby at the west end of the area, to avoid predators and can be seen from the highway where the area is quite rocky.  Their color blends in so well that it is easy to miss them there.

Bighorn sheep navigating the road to get to greener pastures

They do have extremely good eyesight and seem to like what they see here. Their sense of smell is not so good but they manage to find all the good plants they like. Their hearing isn’t good either, so heed them when you drive past, they’re not too road savvy.  The wildlife fence built from the Sun Rivers entrance to the Halston intersection has done a lot to prevent them from getting to the highway and being hit by the traffic.



These Bighorn sheep were watching me from across the street

Rutting season happens in November so their attitude will likely change and it may not be wise to get too close, it may make the ram feel aggressively protective about his ewes.  I prefer to use a big lense on my camera when taking wildlife photos anyway but I especially wouldn’t want to get too close at mating time.  They can run a lot faster than I can.

 Bighorn sheep stop to munch on some tasty plants

 I was interested to learn about the way the sheep segregate for most of the year until mating season in November.  The rams and ewes live in separate herds.  The old ewes take care of the related females and watch over the younger and their lambs plus both sexes of the yearlings.

Curious onlooker from behind the plants

When the rams reach the age of 2 or 3 years, they join the bachelor group.  They all learn survival by watching the older and more experience sheep.  There is an obvious hierarchy among the rams and the young respect the elders in this animal world.  The ram with the biggest horns will be the boss until he is challenged and defeated.

Young one rubs horns against the Bighorn ram's face

We must remember that even if these beautiful sheep are wandering around the front and back yards of our residential homes and they become fairly tame when not being hunted, they are still a wild animal and need to be respected as that. 

The Bighorn sheep stops to enjoy the view of the South Thompson River

During a visit out to Kamloops Lake one summer, we were able to see a large flock of the California Bighorn and got some great photos of that visit.  Click here to see more.

It is amazing that we can share our city with these beautiful animals and just enjoy the view with them, another great reason why we love Kamloops; there is no place like home.

California Bighorn Sheep ~ Kamloops, BC, Canada

We love Kamloops and all it has to offer but there are times that we are amazed by a wonderful sight and today was one of those days ! We’d been on a drive through the Tranquille Valley on July 1 and had only seen one deer, and he was not into posing for pictures.

hillside is covered with California Bighorn sheep

When we least expected to see anything, our young grandson spotted something! The hillside was covered with California Bighorn Sheep (now called Sierra Nevada Bighorn sheep) ! It looked like the hill was moving as their color allows them to blend in so well with the groundcover. We quietly watched them climb the hill, stop to graze and wander about, oblivious to us at the bottom of the hill, with me madly taking pictures.

A closer look at the Bighorn sheep

When you look closely at the hill, as shown in this picture, you will see all those white legs and back sides that identify the sheep there, otherwise they are hard to see.  There are some juveniles in the group as the lambs are born in May but it is very hard to tell from this distance. They grow very quickly and usually weigh about 29 lbs(13 kg) by the end of the summer and are completely weened by 6-8 months.

Curious sheep watching us

The sheep made their way over to a rocky ravine, which had some gorgous colored stones to brighten up the pictures and I was able to zoom in for better pictures.  We didn’t count sheep, they were spread all over the hill and constantly moving but apparently there are 3100 sheep in our area and we think we may have seen about 100 of them. This was a large herd of healthy looking sheep.
                                  

The view was great

The rams (males) have horns that can weigh up to 14 kg (30 lbs) and the ram can weigh up to 90 kg (200 lbs). The large curl of their horn, which they never shed, allows biologists to tell the age of a ram.

These Bighorn sheep are not used to seeing spectators

The females, called ewes can weigh up to 60 kg (140 lbs). They have a small curve to their short horn, which also makes it easy to tell the difference between males and females when we see them. Juveniles start growing their horns early.

They're starting to lose interest in us

Because of the healthy large herds in our area, some sheep have been captured and relocated to other areas such as Nevada, Washington, North Dakota and Utah. The most recent capture was done in Kamloops in January 2009 and 15 sheep were transported 200 km (120 mi) to the Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park.

                                            

One last look at us

In the early 1900's the US government declared the unique subspecies of California Bighorn Sheep to be endangered. Thanks to a big campaign mounted in 1936 by the Arizona Boy Scouts there is a population estimated to be 25,000 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep.  The US still has the California Bighorn Sheep listed as a 'federally endangered species' due to population declines but many steps towards recovery are being taken.
Thanks to the Wild Sheep Society these captures and moves were done successfully and without injury to any of the sheep. They have detailed their capture and you are able to read how they do it by clicking on ‘Wild Sheep Society’.

We love seeing the Kamloops wildlife and we are so lucky to have them in our neighborhood, there is no place like home !