Bighorn sheep move to low elevations in late spring and early summer, when they descend from the Mummy Range to Sheep Lakes in Horseshoe Park. Here, they graze and eat soil to obtain minerals not found in their high mountain habitat. The minerals are essential in restoring nutrient levels depleted by the stresses of lambing and a poor quality winter diet.

In the mid-1880's and early 1900's, the bighorn population declined rapidly. Initially, market hunters shot bighorn by the hundreds to receive high payment for prized horns and meat. When ranchers moved into the mountain valleys, they altered important bighorn habitat and introduced domestic sheep. The domestic sheep carried scabies and pneumonia, which proved fatal to large numbers of bighorn sheep. Under the pressure of disease, hunting and habitat alteration, the bighorn population declined until the middle of the 20th century. Research in the 1950's indicated that about 150 bighorn remained in the area of the national park. The surviving bighorn herds were limited to isolated, high country regions of the Mummy and Never Summer mountain ranges, and along the Continental Divide. The migrating, low-country herds were gone. As the pressure of hunting and disease declined in the 1960's and 1970's, bighorn populations began rebounding. Approximately 300-400 bighorn sheep live in the Rocky Mountain National Park area today.

Credits and Sources:

“Bighorn Sheep.” National Park Service: Rocky Mountain, Colorado. Mammals. Accessed June 12, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/bighorn_sheep.htm

“Bighorn Sheep.” National Park Service: Rocky Mountain, Colorado. Mammals. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/bighorn_sheep.htm

“Bighorn Sheep.” National Park Service: Rocky Mountain, Colorado. Mammals. Accessed June 6, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/bighorn_sheep.htm