The sheer tenacity of life is a truly amazing thing to witness in the wild. It has only one purpose and that is very simply, to live, and it will find all means possible to do so. In nature, we witness it in the study of the survival of species. We learn how animals have adapted and evolved in their environments over vast periods of time to become the creatures we know today.

In the case of bighorn sheep, this has meant learning how to live in what is often considered treacherous terrain. Whether clinging to sheer canyon cliffs of the lower valleys or navigating the steep talus fields of mountain tops, they have adapted to live their lives in places we mere humans would consider astonishingly dangerous. Like their distant goat cousins, they have chosen a life that demands some of the most exquisite precision and balance found anywhere in nature, and they do it seemingly with ease.

Life begins anew each late spring and early summer for the sheep. Within days of birth, they are already taking on the mastering of their agility and ability to make their way about the harsh terrain. In the case of the lambs in this week’s image, their herd spends much of its time at relatively higher elevations. Thus their place of birth and summer home of learning the ways is among the vast boulder fields and cliff walls that make our mighty mountain tops.

Predation of these amazing creatures is minimized simply by their choice of home. The most common animals to hunt bighorns are coyotes, some foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, and eagles. Out of this array of hunters, most are weeded out by the sheep’s ability to escape in this treacherous terrain, leaving eagles, who hunt by grabbing the sheep and dropping from great heights, a mostly unavoidable fate.

With this particular herd, not many of the natural predators make their way up onto the talus and alpine tundra to hunt, leaving them mostly to live in peace. Even so, due to the species’s ability to escape into this death-defying safehold, bighorn sheep mortality is not governed by predation but more so by disease and natural death.

Sadly, here in Colorado their mortality rates have been determined by disease ultimately brought on by human interference in the natural world. In the 1940s the Department of Wildlife introduced mountain goats to the state, a creature that is not native to any but the most northern mountains of the U.S. The introduction of the goats brought disease to the sheep that have decimated localized populations of sheep many times over the decades. In cases where bighorn herds were nearly wiped out, their numbers were supplemented by introducing sheep from other parts of the state, but the risks are always there, with both creatures sharing much of the same terrain.

High atop Mt. Evans, the herd lives on a tenuous thread, as they closely share space with the mountain goats, often mingling in their day-to-day lives. The herd has had a number of issues with population decline over the years, but has held strong with occasional human aid.

On this particular summer afternoon, these tiny ones were part of a nursery of eight babies being watched over by a herd nanny while the parents were off at a graze. The group mostly stayed bedded down for protection, but as the parents returned from their meals, the littles began to stir and become active. Watching them clamber over the large boulders, navigating deep crevasses and sheer drops at such a young age left no doubt about their impressive natural talents of balance and agility. Such a wonderful example of the stunning perseverance of life born to the rock!

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