Bighorn story for the winter solstice

A Bighorn Christmas Story

© Paula Brown-Williams 2018

What did the bighorn get for Christmas? Why every year it is the same thing—a new winter coat. Poor bighorn you say? How boring? Not so! Allow me to explain.

You may think that expensive “Polar Tek” parka of yours is something to behold, but has it seen you through three Ice Ages? The coats of Sierra bighorn sheep have done precisely that. Now there is an expedition jacket for you. And for Sierra Nevada bighorn, the expedition has been 300,000 years long!

Let’s examine the features of this finery and its manufacture. At once both soft and smooth to the hand, the coat is made of a combination of kinky strands of the outer coat and under it, finer fur. The outer coat will be replaced in summer, with the fine underwool growing in fall.

Now if the bighorn live in the high country for the winter months to come—as many Sierra bighorn do—the coat must see these animals through double and sometimes triple-digit winds and subzero temperatures. Compared to you and me, these animals are quite comfortable in such places. Scientists call it the “thermoneutral zone.” It’s an equilibrium where the body needs not generate heat nor cool itself. For you and me (in our birthday suits) we find this happy place at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. But this pleasant “just right” temperature for the bighorn in their winter coats is about -4 degrees—that’s four degrees below zero!

Over the months the color of the coat gradually changes. The sun bleaches the fur, and come spring the bighorn coats will be so light that they will appear to be ghostly apparitions floating above dark, rocky slopes. It won’t be until late spring that the itchy woolen wear of the bighorn becomes a little too much. Then these wild sheep will rub against rocks and bushes to shed their winter underwool.

All the bighorn except for the ewes with lambs begin growing their new sleek coats in early summer. But motherhood, it seems, always requires sacrifices, and these ewes will be last to don their new summer apparel.

So when you put on your warm winter coat, think of the bighorn up there among the peaks and crags of the high Sierra.  Know that the new coat for Christmas has served them well.  And if you would like to help ensure that these wild sheep roam the mountains for ages to come, please consider joining the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep Foundation.