Washington’s 605 bighorn sheep records belong almost entirely to the dry country east of the Cascades. The heaviest counts run from Asotin County’s canyon grasslands at the foot of the Blue Mountains north through Kittitas and Grant, and on up to Okanogan County, where Chopaka Mountain Natural Area Preserve alone holds 57 records.
Built for steep, open country
Bighorns live where broken cliffs and rimrock give them escape terrain, and Washington’s record maps that preference closely. The Wenas Wildlife Area Complex, Ginkgo Petrified Forest above the Columbia, and the Columbia Basin and Blue Mountains wildlife areas all hold sheep. Their hooves grip rock like climbing rubber, and their diet of grasses, forbs, and shrubs fits the thin soils of these dry slopes. Rams and ewes travel in separate bands for much of the year, so a single sighting can mean a dozen animals nearby.
A calendar set by the rut
Sheep stay on their home ranges year-round, and Washington’s record shows it. Counts climb through fall and crest in December, when the late-autumn rut brings rams down to contest ewes on the open slopes, and rise again in April as the bands graze new growth on south-facing benches. Summer sightings stay steady wherever a lookout overlooks canyon country.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the bighorn sheep S2, Imperiled, in Washington, where wild sheep are especially vulnerable to pneumonia passed from domestic sheep. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous.
Full species profile
