The Wild Bighorn Sheep of Anza-Borrego Desert

From desertusa.com: Anza-Borrego is one of the last refuges of the Peninsular Bighorn Sheep. Only 280 of this subspecies remain in the United States and 200 find refuge in the park. Anza-Borrego is important to the Bighorn when you consider the explosive metropolitan growth of Southern California.

All images copyright Dan Wyman 2007

The park has an ongoing program to help the bighorn. Over a quarter of million dollars has been spent to improve bighorn habitat. Projects include construction of six water sources in the Vallecito Mountains, fencing of the park boundary to exclude trespassing cattle, the live removal of wild cattle from many of the west side canyons, and removal of exotic trees from desert water holes.
History

The Desert Bighorn has lived in the Borrego Desert for thousands of years. Bighorn migrated from Siberia over 10,000 years ago, extending their range throughout western North America. Today, Bighorn still range into Baja California, but their numbers have dwindled to less than three percent of the estimated 1.5 million of the early 1 800s. Human activities are responsible for the Bighorn's decline. Grazing, mining, depletion of water holes, homesteading, and use as camp meat spelled disaster for the Bighorn. Today their future rests in our hands. We can help them survive or let them dwindle into history. Hopefully, human concern will help in making their future look brighter.