If deer and bear have taken up residency in Durango and environs, can bighorn sheep be far behind?
Time will tell, Joe Lewandowski, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman in Durango, said of two young bighhorn rams seen Sunday on Lightner Creek Road.
Glenn May with Trout Unlimited was looking for likely fishing spots when he came upon the bighorn near the intersection of Lightner Creek and U.S. Highway 160 west of Durango.
“I was still where there were houses around,” he said. “I had my camera handy, so I took a picture.”
Lewandowski said discovering bighorn within a few miles of the city limits is a surprise.
“I don’t want to say they haven’t been in the area forever,” he said. “But our personnel haven’t seen bighorn or heard reports of them being around.”
A family Lewandowski knows who have lived in Lightner Creek since the 1970s has not seen the bighorns, he said.
On the other hand, it may be nature at work, he said.
Bighorn frequent the Molas Pass/Needles corridor, and there are bighorn around Placerville northwest of Telluride.
“It’s not unusual for young bighorn rams to disperse,” Lewandowski said. “They’re looking for mates and their own territory.
“There’s no way of knowing where these rams came from,” he said. “But 50 miles is nothing for them to cover.”
The young rams May saw Sunday could have found Durango by chance or they could be reconnoitering, he said.
But bighorns are unlikely to nip their way through gardens like deer or turn over garbage cans like black bears, Lewandowski said.
“Bighorn are very wild,” he said. “So they will keep their distance.”
Bighorn should be treated like other wildlife – seen from a distance, he said.
It would be unfortunate for the bighorn to come into contact with domestic sheep or goats that can carry pneumonia and other diseases because the bighorn aren’t immune, Lewandowski said.
“They could hang around,” he said. “We like to see them active because it indicates a healthy herd when young rams feel they have to move to find their own territory.”
daler@durangoherald.com
