Bighorn Sheep

august in the coachella valley the day glo sun spiders in the morning sky like an explosion of ten it catches the rocky crumpled santa rosa mountains looking a bit bedraggled biologist mamie byard bounds up the mountainside behind rancho mirage she uses an h shaped antenna located a radio collared she let out a very weak top of his health fire does with a big horn institute which has been studying the peninsular steps besides a big war and since the nineteen eighties jim to forge director of the institute says the animals live in the peninsular mountain ranges stretching south from here into and along the baja peninsula in mexico they differ from the typical of nelson's of nervous and interest in the island is more bipartisan year round can be seen down below a thousand feet but leading the way down has meant more contact with people and the result is good before gene environment down on a gated subdivision at the foot of the santa rosa is the

homes are sheltered in popular greenery sheep raised here before the homes were built and the new landscape has been a lowering but deadly some sheep were poisoned by eating oleander others ingested parasites looking into long felt that have bipartisan support we found that thirty four percent of adults were dying in the five year period the computer position and a foreign trip or so i am sure so when junger arrived within five miles of fence to keep the sheep now you were dyed with the habitat is gone for good loss of habitat along with disease and predators cause the us peninsular bighorn population to plummet to about two hundred and eighty animals in nineteen ninety six the cause of that disease remains unknown but eventually let up with the help of captive breeding the bighorn population has rebounded to around seven hundred before jim fired follow trails made it over a series of steep ridges would have a stronger immune response will

also hoping the sunni and the shia are hard to spot their beta codes land with the mountain terrain any buyer but he's there as a revenue its mating season so that she prepared up tired said that the spotting scope to get a better look at these head threat by the bush you is browsing on acacia bush the acorns derive their name and their elegance from the fake crescent shaped horns that arch back from the tops of their heads their exquisitely adapted to the desert their temperature can climb as high as a hundred seven degrees and they can lose as much as a third of their body weight to dehydration and still survive judith board says this gear looks healthy which is a relief considering recent events we have a number of thirty eight was radio collared and we found six those record animals die a

three week period and most to young age animals which is very unusual heat sorensen of the us fish and wildlife service says they died of pneumonia usually pneumonia the problem will shoot at a secondary source of infection that often follow through another kind of the juice that may initially weaken the animal but sorensen says wildlife officials haven't identified the disease the heat to graze the tissue of dead sheep before they can get a good sample the disease might also explain the low survival rates of lambs in anza borrego state park this year the baker institute says while cheaper are vulnerable to diseases carried by domestic livestock the institute's gym to forge is also worried that more hikers in the mountains will scare sheep away from important habitat and people continue to develop the desert the ford says we're gambling with the big horns future make a lot of experiments and experiments were kind of based on how much can they take rather than

what are the needs of the animal years politicians to overturn jury dealing with a minimum it's unfortunate because you know that we still have wild places and wild animals and the santa rosa mountains also said they'll be nine point three kpcc