An Intimate View of the Endangered Desert Bighorns of Southern California

INDIO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 9: An endangered desert bighorn ewe looks at a swimming pool that was emptied for the intensely hot summer season at a park where bighorns are tempted to leave the safety of their native habitat for grass and water in the summertime on August 9, 2023 near Indio, California. Nearing extinction with only 280 desert bighorn sheep left from Palm Springs and Mexico, the bighorns of the Peninsular Ranges came under federal protection in 1998 when they were listed as 'endangered' under the Endangered Species Act. The population has tripled since nearing extinction in the 1990s and important Important gains have occurred in the northern Santa Rosa and San Jacinto ranges but threats persist. During recent years of record drought where summer temperatures reach up to 117 degrees and higher, crucial water sources across the desert have become dangerously diminished. Much credit for successes in the northern areas has gone to the nonprofit scientific organization, The Bighorn Institute, headed by wildlife biologist Jim DeForge. In establishing a successful captive breeding program, the institute has released more than 125 captive-reared bighorns into areas that some officials had given up on. It also pushes for continuing construction of a "sheep fence" to protect the animals from entering urban developments that abut, or are built on top of, native bighorn habitat where they often eat chemical-laden golf course turf or poisonous oleander bushes, and are killed by cars. In areas without fencing, bighorns also face further drownings in a canal that runs aside golf resorts. A second population of endangered bighorns also occurs in California, the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae). Nearly half of the Sierra Nevada bighorn population of 600 was killed by the extreme weather conditions of the record winter of 2022-2023. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)