Talk:Bighorn sheep

Domestication - impossible?

The article says Bighorn Sheep can't be domesticated because they don't have a clear dominance hierarchy and won't follow a single leader. Probably this is an exaggeration. In fact Bighorn herds are reasonably cohesive, so there must be some social mechanism for keeping herds intact as they move around. Perhaps not the identical mechanisms that humans learned to exploit with sheep and goat species that were domesticated in Europe and SW Asia, but nevertheless a mechanism capable of discovery and exploitation.

Orphaned Bighorn lambs have certainly been tamed and integrated into human families, probably replicating the intial phases of domestication in Old World neolithic societies. Probably Bighorn Sheep were never fully domesticated simply because Native American societies in their range had not reached a stage of agricultural development where domestication of animals was seen as a priority. If domestication had been a priority, bison are probably as capable of domestication as the wild ancestors of cattle and water buffalo -- which are actually quite fierce. Perhaps deer could have been domesticated into a functional equivalent of goat, New World ducks probably could have been domesticated as easily as their Old WOrld counterparts.

Instead as history played out, Eurasian domesticated animals arrived on the scene before Native Americans seem to have fully grasped the possibilities of domestication. When these possibilities became obvious, it was much easier to adopt the european results than to proceed with the lengthy process of selective breeding with New World natives. LADave 11:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Domestication is possible; can be done in one generation, and should be done for all the native american ungulates, domestication of a particular species of animal garenties its survival, this is evident with the American Plains Bison if it were left up to the US gov. the plains bison would be extinct. —Preceding ETBreedlove comment added by 204.124.92.254 (talk) 21:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

An Eagle?

From the characteristics section: "Bighorns are well adapted to climbing steep terrain where they seek cover from predators such as coyotes, eagles, and cougars. "

Was this some kind of joke? I do not believe bighorns face predation from eagles. Furthermore, how would climbing up a slope provide any protection from an airborne predator like an eagle? I think the word "eagle" should be eliminated unless someone can offer some reference to support the claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.162.74.90 (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Not a joke but until they are a certain size, eagles can easily take lambs. In fact a lot of birds can kill the lambs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.26.109.139 (talk) 07:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Not true, the lambs are just too large, an eagle has trouble handling some trout, and grown house cats prove too large for them to handle, the california condor would be a considerable danger if it wornt for the fact that they dont kill their pray.

I have seen an eagle knock a mountain goat off a ledge to its death. It can happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.107.91.66 (talk) 20:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC) Bears should be in in this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.124.92.254 (talk) 21:31, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

We have large birds of prey in Ohio -- including eagles. they are not capable of eating small dogs, much less big horn sheep lambs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.186.139.101 (talk) 14:35, 21 August 2011 (UTC) I have seen an eagle pick a lamb up from a field, and lift it all the way to the top of a tree. Sheep producers in our area of BC have problems with bald eagles that pick up poultry and lambs. Occasionally golden eagles will kill larger lambs, and there are reports of small animal kills in Alaska by golden eagles. On youtube there is a video of an eagle knocking a wild goat off a cliff, then going down to eat it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firhillfarm (talk • contribs) 17:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, an eagle. I did a bit of research and it seems that eagles do capture lambs. I found a news article about domestic lambs and government resource regarding Bighorn Sheep. Jesseraekern (talk) 14:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Interbreeding

Can bighorns breed with domestic sheep? 63.26.109.139 (talk) 07:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC) big horn babies are cute — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:761B:C200:996B:C48F:19B1:4CCF (talk) 01:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Culture

Are bighorn sheep the inspiration for the mascot of the St. Louis Rams, and the log of Ram Trucks? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.91.70.120 (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Yup, the logos are based on the bighorn sheep (with its distinctive curved horns).^[1] - M0rphzone (talk) 06:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit: After checking the article pages, it seems the logos are based on the ram (and not specifically the bighorn sheep although it has the same curved horns as well). - M0rphzone (talk) 06:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Ewes

After a discussion on another site where somebody said bighorn ewe horns are small and straight like a goat - citing wikipedia - I had to make a login and say something here.

See the FAQ at the Bighorn Insitiute:

   http://www.bighorninstitute.org/faq.htm

saya: "Female bighorn or "ewes" have slender, straighter horns that grow throughout their lives to lengths of 8-10" for Rocky Mountain bighorn ewes and 12-17" for desert bighorn ewes. "

Ewe' horns tend to stay in one plane, and not spiral like a ram, but they DO curve, especially the Desert ewes. Their horns are often said to never exceed half a circle, but the desert bighorn ewes push that sometimes.

Mostly, they are curved in a single plane and slender. Ram's horns are fat. I don't know how to give any of that as a wikipedia reference, but I am changing the wording slightly. If anybody feels like doing some homework, a lot of details can be improved here. The subspecies differ quite a bit in some ways, and it would be good to look over this article with some resepected references in hand. Right now bad inferences are being made from this otherwise valuable work. Here's to the lady bighorns.

Mikevallarta (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Scouting

The section on scouting feels rather out of place. I don't doubt that the efforts of the boy scouts might have helped conserve bighorns in Arizona, but it seems like a level of detail beyond what is present in other sections of the article, and more detail than in most other Wikipedia articles I've seen on wild animals. There are surely countless other conservation efforts of equal or more importance that have occurred elsewhere in bighorn sheep range, so why devote an entire section to this one? My suggestion would be to remove this section from the article, and perhaps replace it with a new section that discusses conservation from a broader perspective. BiasOnTheOddByte (talk) 01:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I trimmed the Scouting material down to a short paragraph, and renamed the section "Conservation".I've marked the section as needing expansion: it would be great if multiple editors can collaborate to expand the section. — hike395 (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC)