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Showing posts from November, 2024

Ramming into a Wildlife Encounter

On an early morning walk to the canyon edge I heard a large animal moving around, and pretty close to us, too.  And it was getting closer. Soon I could see him.  A bighorn sheep ram -- let's call him El Borrego -- was actually walking towards us.  Hopefully my little dog would not see him and start barking.  I tried to freeze and get my camera ready at the same time. El Borrego saw me.  He kept making direct eye contact with me, the same way that coyotes sometimes will.  At first I wondered if El Borrego was crazy, rabid, or something.  Closer inspection of his collar might provide the explanation:  Gosh, is it possible that the Utah state wildlife people are over-managing the wildlife a little? But at the time I was so excited that I didn't see the GPS collar, and instead thought only of freezing, to see how close El Borrego would come.  He came up to the rim of the canyon, maybe 75 feet away from me, and coyly looked at me while hiding behind a bush: Later in the bike ride I