Three more bighorns, including lamb, dead in Catalinas

Three more bighorn sheep, including a lamb, have died in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, state wildlife officials reported.

The carcasses of a ewe and lamb were found at the end of March, and officers of the Arizona Game and Fish Department determined that a mountain lion killed the sheep. A pursuit of the lion was unsuccessful.

Another ewe was seen, limping and disoriented, on April 3 in the yard of a residence near Pusch Ridge, the area where efforts are underway to rebuild a herd that disappeared from the Catalinas in the 1990s. The limping bighorn died later on the day it was sighted, Game and Fish officials said.

Meanwhile, the department has placed the mounted body and head of a record-sized bighorn ram on display in the customer service area of its Phoenix headquarters.

LAMB DEATH

“The lamb was found underneath the ewe” that was killed by a mountain lion, said Mark Hart, spokesman for the Game and Fish Department. “The lamb would have been just a few months old.”

The carcasses of the ewe and lamb showed signs that a lion had fed on them, Hart said.

INJURED BIGHORN

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The bighorn observed limping in a yard before its death was submitted for a necropsy to determine the cause of death.

“We have done the necropsy, but we need lab results before we can say conclusively what caused the animal’s death,” Hart said. “It will be a few weeks before we know for sure. Given that it was limping, it may have sustained some type of injury.”

It doesn’t appear that predation was a factor in the bighorn’s death, Hart said.

HERD POPULATION

“We are now down to 41 (GPS) collared sheep that are known to be alive,” Hart said. “There are probably 85 alive in all” including animals released without collars, those whose collars have dropped off, and those born in the Catalina Mountains.

He said 38 bighorns in the Catalinas have died from a variety of causes, including predation and disease, since the reintroduction effort began in 2013.

BIGHORN ON DISPLAY

The mounted bighorn on display at Game and Fish headquarters is on loan from the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society,” Dale Hajek, another department spokesman, said in a news release.