Ovis canadensis auduboni (Badlands Bighorn)

[Carlos]

Ovis canadensis auduboni Merriam 1901

Upper Missouri, Saskatchewan to Nebraska (Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming).

Extinct 1905.

planet-mammiferes.org/

[another specialist]

The sheep that will not die
Audubon BighornClinging to the myth of Audubon’s bighorn.
By Brett French



This story is featured in Montana Outdoors
November–December 2004

Can a species be extinct if it never existed? With the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition now under way, Audubon’s bighorn sheep are often mentioned as one of the now-extinct species the Corps of Discovery encountered on its trip up the Missouri River. “The Mandan Indians Call this sheep Ar-as-ta,” Clark wrote on December 22, 1804, while camped in what is today central North Dakota. “It is about the size of a large Deer, or a small Elk, its Horns Come out and wind around the head like the horns of a Ram….”

But did expedition members actually see a unique sheep subspecies, or, as new re-search indicates, did they simply come across a variation of the widespread Rocky Mountain bighorn that, at the time, lived farther east than it does today?

What did they actually see?
There is no debate that bighorn sheep once existed farther east from their current range. Biologists believe the sheep likely settled in the northern Great Plains badlands over millennia by migrating from the Rocky Mountains down the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, slowly expanding up tributary drainages.

Lewis and Clark encountered their first bighorn sheep in eastern Montana, killing three in what is today the Upper Missouri River National Monu-ment. A year later, on his return trip down the Yellowstone River, William Clark noted in his journal that the party saw “a gang of about 40 Big horn” sheep, and he killed four after inscribing his name in the sandstone of Pompeys Pillar.

While retracing the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s route in 1843, noted naturalist John James Audubon hunted bighorn sheep in the badlands of North Dakota and wrote about his experience. In 1901, perhaps in honor of Audubon’s observations, natural historian C. Hart Merriam scientifically classified the badlands sheep as a subspecies of Rocky Mountain bighorn (Ovis canadensis) and called them Ovis canadensis auduboni. The name gained even greater scientific credence in 1940, when the esteemed Canadian zoology professor Ian McTaggart-Cowan included the Audubon’s as one of seven subspecies of bighorn sheep he de-fined in North America.

It took thousands of years for bighorn sheep to explore, claim, and settle the badlands, but the animals were removed from the region in less than 100 years. The westward expansion of land-hungry Americans and immigrants quickly displaced the big-horn sheep in eastern Montana and the western Dakotas and Nebraska. The sheep were hunted for food and, later, their elegant curled horns. Then, as sheepherders and cattlemen moved in, the bighorn’s range was overtaken by livestock that carried diseases for which the native sheep had no immunity. Finally, cheap land offered to those who would settle and cultivate the ground brought a rush of farmers to the dry lands.

Squeezed by the pressures of western settlement and expansion, bighorn sheep living in the badlands died out. In his book Lives of Game Animals, published in 1929, naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton noted that bighorn sheep were “practically cleared out of the Black Hills by about 1887, though… a few lingered on till 1899 when the last one was killed.” The last bighorn sheep seen in eastern Montana was a ram killed in 1916 in the Seven Blackfoot Creek area of the Missouri Breaks.

Questioning a classification
For nearly a century after the Missouri Breaks ram was killed, biologists and others have lamented the disappearance of the so-called Audubon’s bighorn. As one North Dakota state publication puts it, “Thus, the Audubon [sic] bighorn went the way of the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet.”

And yet new evidence seems to show there never was a separate Audubon’s bighorn subspecies. These great sheep of the Great Plains were simply Rocky Mountain bighorns that had adapted to life at lower elevations.

A species is a population with roughly the same size, color, behavior, and habitat that breeds with each other and can’t breed with other groups. Members of the Canada goose species, for example, can’t breed with those of other waterfowl species, such as the snow goose.

A subspecies is a race or group within a species that looks and is genetically different from other members of the species but can still breed with them. For example, there are several subspecies of Canada geese that differ mainly in size. And scientists have concluded that the Rocky Mountain bighorn and the desert bighorn are different subspecies.

The big question is whether what has been called the Audubon’s bighorn sheep differed enough from ordinary Rocky Mountain bighorns to be considered a subspecies.

Biologists don’t dispute that the badlands bighorns may have looked slightly different from their mountainous cousins. But those minor differences weren’t enough for population research scientists John Wehausen and Rob Ramey. In a study published in Journal of Mammalogy in 2000, they wrote, “Our results did not support the recognition of Audubon’s bighorn sheep as a subspecies separate from Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep….” The scientists noted that Cowan’s classification of the Audubon’s 60 years ear-lier was based on examination of just four bighorn skulls, and they took issue with the fact that the “type specimen” was not an adult ram but a juvenile. “The resolution and results were influenced by small samples, age-related effects on size, and violation of statistical assumptions,” they wrote. “As a result, statistical re-analysis of Cowan’s (1940) original data has not found support for most of his subspecific designations.”

Taxonomy in the early 20th century was fraught with subjective interpretations of limited information. “In traditional taxonomy, species and subspecies were what a good taxonomist said they were,” says Ramey, chair and curator of vertebrate zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

For their study, Ramey and Wehausen were able to find seven alleged Audubon’s specimens—two adult male bighorn skulls from North Dakota, two from South Dakota, and three from eastern Montana. They used 50 measurements to describe four skull attributes: lengths, widths, height, and horns, and then measured each horn using five circumferences to determine volume. The researchers found “no significant differences” between those skulls and those of ordinary Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

“It’s really not a very surprising result,” says Wehausen, a scientist at the University of California White Mountain Research Station. “We’re just correcting some questionable work from earlier days. Now we have more rigorous hypothesis testing.”

Modern scientists also point out that no reasonable evolutionary explanation exists to explain a distinct subspecies of bighorn sheep. The badlands sheep were never geographically separated from the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Biologists say a newly formed natural barrier would have been necessary to isolate the badlands bighorns so they would develop distinct, unique characteristics.

Old myths die hard
Because the idea of an Audubon subspecies has been promulgated for more than a century, it has become entrenched in western mythology. “People just eat this stuff up and keep repeating it,” Wehausen says about the romantic notion of a “lost” species. He adds that much incorrect information circulating about bighorn sheep doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. “It’s frustrating for people like us, who try to set the record straight, that the information is being ignored.”

In 2003, three years after Wehausen’s and Ramey’s study was published, the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois, Wyoming, exhibited an aging bighorn sheep mount labeled as the extinct Audubon’s bighorn subspecies. The mount was on loan from South Dakota’s Custer State Park, which labeled it as an “endemic subspecies to the badlands and Dakotas.”

June Sampson, director of the Wyoming bighorn sheep center, justifies the Audu-bon’s label by noting that Ramey’s and Wehausen’s technical study can be difficult for the lay person to understand. The center included a footnote in its information on the mount that the two scientists concluded there never was a separate subspecies. “We let visitors decide for themselves from there,” Sampson says.

The Dakotas and Nebraska have been especially keen on recounting the past glory of Audubon’s bighorn. The subspecies is mentioned on the websites of all three states’ conservation agencies. North Dakota, however, has recently begun to publicly question the validity of the subspecies, says Ron Wilson, editor of North Dakota Outdoors. “There is growing recognition here that the Audubon’s designation is based on some pretty shaky science,” he says.

Bill Jensen, a big game biologist with the North Dakota Game and Fish Depart-ment, has collected bighorn skulls and skull measurements since the mid-1980s, when he first grew suspicious that there was no separate subspecies.

“This all stems back to an era when a naturalist gained fame by naming new species and subspecies,” Jensen says. “We had naturalists running all over the place trying to name new animals. At one time, they actually thought there were 20 different subspecies of black bear.”

Montanans aren’t immune to the Audubon’s bighorn mystique. Full mounts of what are called Audubon’s bighorn sheep can also be found in Havre at the Montana State University–Northern’s science building and in Miles City’s Montana Bar.

Symbol of Paradise Lost?
Michael Sexson, a professor of mythology at Montana State University, says no matter what the facts are, the myth of Audubon’s bighorn will likely survive.

“Some people would prefer to believe in things more interesting than the facts allow them to be,” he says. “We like to have our stories as stories.”

Sexson says the sheep play an important role in the story of Lewis and Clark’s journey across the West, an epic adventure that has become part of American mythology. The two heroic characters overcame enormous odds to voyage from the mouth of the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and back. It’s a tale of bravery, perseverance, and faith. Yet, like other heroic myths, the Lewis and Clark adventure has its dark side.

“As the adventurer in traditional mythology forges ahead to a new civilization, he typically wreaks havoc on the land and leaves carnage in his wake,” Sexson says. In the case of the Lewis and Clark saga, the unspoiled paradise discovered by the Corps of Discovery was degraded in the subsequent scramble for precious metals, timber, grazing lands, and farmland. Hence, the mythologist explains, within the larger myth of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Audubon’s bighorn emerges as a corollary myth of how westward exploration and eventual expansion led to the demise of the badlands bighorn sheep.

Seen in this way, Audubon’s bighorn symbolizes both abundance and loss. It stands for the great natural wealth America possessed when the West was young, an Eden of bountiful forests and wildlife where native people lived harmoniously with their natural surroundings. But it can also represent how Americans exploited the nation’s finite natural resources in their quest for higher living standards.

Because both views of western expansion are widely popular, Audubon’s bighorn will likely live on—even though, as some now say, it never even existed.

fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/HTML/articles/2004/audubonbighorn.htm

[another specialist]

First Noted by Expedition
April 26, 1805, near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, McKenzie County, North Dakota.

Range
Western Dakotas and part of eastern Montana.

Extinct. Last sightings around 1890.

www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/record_species_152_6.html

[another specialist]

Ovis canadensis auduboni Merriam
Audubon Mountain Sheep

Bighorn of the Badlands; Ansa-chta of the Mandans (Will); Hekinskagi (Hekinshkagi) of the Dakotas (Gilmore); Azichtia of the Hidatsas (Matthews) ; Arikusa of the Arikaras (Gilmore).

Ovis canadensis auduboni Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. 14, p. 31, 1901.
Type locality.--"Upper Missouri," probably the Badlands between the Cheyenne and White Rivers, S. Dak. Type specimen supposed to have been collected by F. V. Hayden in 1855. [See original description.]
General characters.--Fully as large or larger than Ovis canadensis, molars and jaws much heavier. Audubon (1851-1854, vol. 2, p. 165, 1851) gives the color of July specimens as light grayish brown, rump and underparts, grayish white; and the weight of a male as 344 pounds, and of a female as 240 pounds.
Distribution, habitat, and habits.--Lewis and Clark in 1805, Maximilian in 1833, and Audubon in 1843, in their trips up the Missouri River, found mountain sheep on the Badlands bluffs between the points where the Little Knife and White Earth Rivers join the Missouri from the north, below the mouth of Muddy River, and near the junction of the Yellowstone with the Missouri. Maximilian reported them as abundant in the "Black Hills," where the Indians went to hunt them, and on his map includes under this name the Killdeer Mountains and Badlands along the Little Missouri River. At Fort Clark he (Wied 1839-1841, Bd. 2 p. 85, 1841) said they were not found within 50 miles, which may have been either north or west, but was probably both. Apparently the original range of the bighorn in North Dakota included all of the very rough Badlands country along and west of the Missouri River. Howard Eaton in the seventies, and Theodore Roosevelt in the eighties, killed mountain sheep in the Badlands along the Little Missouri, but they were then no longer abundant; and at the present time there is probably not a live wild mountain sheep in the State, nor one of this subspecies in existence.
The history of the bighorn in North Dakota is in a small way like that of the buffalo--a record of extermination. In 1804, Lewis and Clark (1893, pp. 150, 214, 284) reported bighorns in the Badlands west of the Missouri River. At the Mandan villages they saw sheep horns among the Indians, and near the mouth of the Yellowstone one of their men met several of the bighorn animals, but they were too shy to be obtained.
[p.26] In 1833, Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1839-1841, Bd. 1, p. 423, 1839; Bd. 2, pp. 85, 309, 315, 1841), on his way up the Missouri to Fort Clark and Fort Union and thence west to Fort McKenzie and back to Fort Clark, where he spent the winter of 1833-34 among the Mandan Indians, first saw mountain sheep above the mouth of the Little Knife River. Later he found them below the mouth of the Muddy River and near the mouth of the Yellowstone, while among the Mandans and Minnetarees he found beautiful shirts made of bighorn leather. The Minnetarees, he said, went to the Black Hills and other mountainous tracts to hunt, and killed a hundred or more sheep in a season. Among the Mandans and some of the other tribes he found the horns in use as bowls or ladles.
Audubon (1897, pp. 24, 28, 40) saw his first bighorns in 1843 on the summit of a hill above the mouth of the Little Knife River, quite probably the same butte on which Maximilian had seen them 10 years before, and he was told by the captain of the steamer that they had been seen there on his previous trip up the river. He saw others 6 miles below the mouth of the Muddy River, and near the mouth of the Yellowstone he saw a mixed band of 22, including rams, ewes, and one lamb (June 12). Many others were seen by members of his party, but it was with great difficulty that his hunters obtained enough sheep for his drawings and for a few specimens to be brought back. The sheep were very shy and kept on the highest and roughest parts of the Badlands buttes. He says, "I am told that the Rocky Mountain rams lost most of their young during the hard frosts of the early spring; for, like those of the common sheep, the lambs are born as early as the 1st of March, and hence their comparative scarcity." This explanation suggests some more recent theories to account for the scarcity of game, but with wolves and coyotes as abundant as they were at that time, the wonder is that any lambs could escape to grow up, even on the very rough slopes that afforded the only protection to the adults.
In 1860, J. G. Cooper (1869, p. 296) reported mountain sheep along the rocky bluffs bordering the Missouri River "above the Great Bend," but this record is indefinite, as most of his notes refer to the part of his trip from Fort Buford west to Fort Stanton, Mont.
A. McG. Beede, who has had long acquaintance with the Indians and is familiar with their language, hunting lore, and traditions, says that there never were any mountain sheep near the Missouri at Cannon Ball, but that formerly the Indians went farther west to hunt them.
Howard Eaton stated that in October, 1879, he killed two mountain sheep on Bullion Butte, a high plateau about 20 miles south of Medora. He also captured a live ewe on or near the butte and sent it to the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, and he had killed many more in the Badlands of the Little Missouri.
In the early eighties Theodore Roosevelt (1900b, pp. 73-105) hunted mountain sheep in the Badlands along the Little Missouri, and although much hard hunting was required for the few mountain sheep seen and the one fine ram killed, he has given us the best account of the habits and haunts of this species to be found in literature.
[p.27] In 1913, Stanley G. Jewett, while in the Killdeer Mountains, was told by Mike Caskelly, of Oakdale, N. Dak., that three mountain sheep were found in the Killdeer Mountains in 1988. For several days they were seen feeding on the ridge above his ranch, where the present town of Oakdale now stands. Two of these were killed by Caskelly's brother. In 1915, Remington Kellogg saw a mounted mountain sheep head at the home of Charles W. Hoffman, principal of the Indian School at Shell Village. It was one of three killed by an Indian (Birdsbill) in 1898 from a bunch of five in the Badlands of the Little Missouri just outside the reservation. Later a photograph was obtained of this head. On Magpie Creek, a branch of the Little Missouri, west of the Killdeer Mountains, Jewett saw an old weathered horn that had been picked up a few years previously, and ranchmen told him that mountain sheep had formerly ranged over the rough hills along Magpie Creek. The last one known there was an old ram killed about 1905, the head of which was in the possession of a ranchman near Quinion. So far as known this is the last record for the State, although there are somewhat later reports of the species from the Badlands of South Dakota.
In the destructive and constructive periods of the West, as it passed from savage to civilized life, the bighorn of this open and accessible area contributed its all. Besides its most savory of wild meats, its magnificent head and horns offered a highly prized trophy not often obtained in the low country or where hunting on horseback was possible. Whether for sport or profit there was always a high price on the head of the bighorn, and this spells the doom of any species.

www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/govdocs/text/fauna/part2a.html

[another specialist]

Extinct and vanishing mammals of the western hemisphere, with the marine species of all the oceans (1942)

Author: Allen, Glover M. (Glover Morrill), 1879-1942

www.archive.org/details/extinctvanishing00allerich

[another specialist]

Field Book of North American Mammals By H. E. Anthony

[another specialist]

Lewis and Clark on the Great Plains
By Paul A. Johnsgard

[another specialist]

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
By Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Clark, William, 1770-1838, American Philosophical Society, Dunlay, Thomas W., 1944-, Gary E. Moulton, Thomas W. Dunlay, Lewis, Meriwether, 1774-1809, University of Nebraska--Lincoln Center for Great Plains Studies

[another specialist]

Swan Song
By J. Patrick Lewis, Christopher Wormell

[Melanie]

Neither Natureserve nor MSW 3 considered it as valid subspecies.

[another specialist]

May 4, 2009 8:20:22 GMT Melanie said:

Neither Natureserve nor MSW 3 considered it as valid subspecies.

Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)[3] is a species of sheep in North America and Siberia with large horns which can weigh up to 30 pounds (14 kg). Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae.

The bighorn sheep originally crossed over the Bering land bridge from Siberia: the population in North America peaked in the millions, and the bighorn sheep entered into the mythology of Native Americans. However, the population crashed by 1900 down to several thousand. Conservation efforts (in part, by the Boy Scouts) have restored the population.

Taxonomy and subspecies
Ovis canadensis is one of three species of mountain sheep in North America and Siberia; the other two species being Ovis dalli, that includes Dall Sheep and Stone's Sheep, and the Siberian Snow sheep Ovis nivicola.

The taxononomy of Ovis canadensis continues to be modified as new genetic and morphologic data becomes available but most scientists currently recognize the following subspecies of bighorn:[4][5]

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis)
Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae), formerly California Bighorn Sheep,[5]
Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni)
In addition, there are currently two federally endangered populations:[6]

Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae), recognized as a unique subspecies
Peninsular Bighorn Sheep, a distinct population segment of Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni)

Scientific analysis
Bighorn Sheep are considered good indicators of land health because the species is sensitive to many human-induced environmental problems. In addition to their aesthetic value, Bighorn Sheep are considered desirable game animals by hunters. The Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada Bighorn occupy the cooler mountainous regions of Canada and the United States. In contrast, the Desert Bighorn Sheep subspecies are indigenous to the hot desert ecosystems of the Southwestern United States.

In 1940, Cowan taxonomically split the species into seven subspecies:[7]

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis canadensis. Habitat: from British Columbia to Arizona.
California Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis californiana. Owens defined the habitat from British Columbia down to California and over to North Dakota. The definition of this subspecies has been updated (see below).
Nelson's Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis nelsoni, the most common Desert Bighorn Sheep, ranges from California through Arizona.
Mexicana Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis mexicana, range from Arizona and New Mexico down to Sonora and Chihuahua.
Peninsular Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis cremnobates. Habitat: the Peninsular Ranges of California and Baja California.
Weems' Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis weemsi. Habitat: Baja California.
Audubon's Bighorn Sheep Ovis canadensis auduboni. Habitat: North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska. Extinct since 1925.
However, starting in 1993, Ramey and colleagues,[8][14] using DNA testing, have shown that this division into seven subspecies is largely illusory. The latest science shows that Bighorn Sheep is one species, with 3 subspecies O. c. canadensis, O. c. nelsoni, and O. c. sierrae. O. c. sierrae is a genetically distinct subspecies that only occurs in the Sierra Nevada. O. c. nelsoni occur throughout the southwestern desert regions of the U.S. and Mexico, whereas O. c. canadensis occupy the U.S. and Canadian Rocky Mountains and the northwestern U.S.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bighorn_Sheep

[another specialist]

Reference 14

Wehausen, J. D.; R. R. Ramey II (1993). "A morphometric reevaluation of the Peninsular bighorn subpecies". Trans. Desert Bighorn Council 37: 1–10.

www.wmrs.edu/people/BIOs/john%20wehausen/wehausen%20and%20ramey%201993.pdf

No mention of any DNA test or comparasions done with any samples or specimens of Ovis canadensis auduboni.

[another specialist]

Reference 8

Ramey, R. R. II (1993) (Ph.D. Thesis). Evolutionary genetics and systematics of North American mountain sheep. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Unable to find this PDF would like to have a look at it myself.
So if anyone has a copy please send us a copy.

[Melanie]

Taxonomic Comments: Wehausen and Ramey (2000) examined variation in skull and horn characters in populations from the Great Basin north to British Columbia and Alberta and concluded that: (1) O. c. auduboni does not warrant recognition separate from O. c. canadensis; (2) populations of O. c. "californiana" in British Columbia and Washington are best treated as O. c. canadensis; (3) extirpated native populations of O. c. "californiana" in northeastern California, Oregon, northern Nevada, and southwestern Idaho should be included in O. c. nelsoni (recognizing that some transition to O. c. canadensis probably occurred along that northern boundary); and (4) O. c. californiana is restricted to the central and southern Sierra Nevada in California. However, the type locality of O. c. californiana is Yakima Co., Washington, a locality now assigned to O. c. canadensis; thus, the Sierra Nevada population is not part of O. c. californiana, but is either O. c. canadensis or a distinct subspecies with a different name. The evidence of Wehausen and Ramey (2000) that this population is fixed for a unique mtDNA haplotype would indicate the latter. USFWS (2008) reviewed available taxonomic information and concluded that the Sierra Nevada population should be recognized as a distinct subspecies (Ovis canadensis sierrae).

Ramey (1995) examined mtDNA variation in O. canadensis populations in the southwestern United States and adjacent northern Baja California and found a lack of concordance between mtDNA haplotype distributions and current subspecies designations. Additionally, Ramey (1993) and Wehausen and Ramey (1994) found no morphological support for the separation of desert sheep into four subspecies. Ramey (1995) suggested that populations formerly considered to be O. c. nelsoni, O. c. mexicana, O. c. cremnobates, and O. c. weemsi probably should be recognized as a single polytypic subspecies on the basis of morphological and mtDNA data. As such, the subspecies would be O. c. nelsoni Merriam, 1897. A study of nuclear DNA markers is needed to test this conclusion (Ramey 1995).

The genus Ovis has been included in the genus Capra by some authors. See Georgiadis et al. (1991) for a phylogeny of the Bovidae based on allozyme divergence among 27 species. See Kraus and Miyamoto (1991) for a phylogenetic analysis of pecoran ruminants (Cervidae, Bovidae, Moschidae, Antilocapridae, and Giraffidae) based on mitochondrial DNA data.

Old World O. nivicola occasionally has been included in O. canadensis, but most authorities have regarded them as separate species (see Grubb, in Wilson and Reeder 1993, 2005).

MtDNA data for O. c. canadensis suggest that "gene flow has occurred on a regional scale at some time in the past and that populations have not been subdivided by long-term biogeographic barriers. Nonetheless, significant differentiation in mtDNA-haplotype frequencies among herds suggests that little gene flow currently exists among populations" (Luikart and Allendorf 1996).

www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Ovis+canadensis

Related References

# ALLEN, CRAIG R., STEPHEN DEMARAIS, AND R. SCOTT LUTZ. 1994. RED IMPORTED FIRE ANT IMPACT ON WILDLIFE: AN OVERVIEW. TEXAS J. SCI. 46(1):51-59.

# Banfield, A. W. F. 1974. The mammals of Canada. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada. 438 pp.

# Berger, J. 1990. Persistence of different-sized populations: an empirical assessment of rapid extinctions in bighorn sheep. Conservation Biology 4:91-98.

# Biosystems Analysis, Inc. 1989. Endangered Species Alert Program Manual: Species Accounts and Procedures. Southern California Edison Environmental Affairs Division.

# Bissonette, J. A., and M. J. Steinkamp. 1996. Bighorn sheep response to ephemeral habitat fragmentation by cattle. Great Basin Naturalist 56:319-325.

# Bleich, V. C., J. D. Wehausen, and S. A. Holl. 1990. Desert-dwelling mountain sheep: conservation implications of a naturally fragmented distribution. Conservation Biology 4:383-390.

# Boyce, M. B., R. K. Clark and D. J. Jessop. 1990. Recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of psoroptic scabies in bighorn sheep. Biennial Symposium of the Northern Wild Sheep and Goat Council 7:125-128.

# Boyce, W. M., C. S. O'Brien, and E. S. Rubin. 2003. Response of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) to feral honey bees (Apis mellifera) at water. Southwestern Naturalist 48:81-84.

# Buechner, H. K. 1960. The bighorn sheep in the United States-its past, present and future. Wildlife Monograph No. 4. 174pp.

# Bunch, T. D., W. M. Boyce, C. P. Hibler, W. R. Lance, T. R. Spraker, and E. S. Williams. 1999. Pp. 209-237 IN R. Valdez and P. R. Krausman (eds.). Mountain sheep of North America. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona. 353 pp.

# California Department of Fish and Game (CDF&G). 1990. 1989 annual report on the status of California's state listed threatened and endangered plants and animals. 188 pp.

# Cannings, S. G., L. R. Ramsay, D. F. Fraser, and M. A. Fraker. 1999. Rare amphibians, reptiles, and mammals of British Columbia. Wildlife Branch and Resources Inventory Branch, B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victoria, B.C. 198 pp.

# Caughley, G. 1977. Analysis of vertebrate populations. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.

# Clark, T. W., and M. R. Stromberg. 1987. Mammals in Wyoming. Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Publ. Education Series No. 10. xii + 314 pp.

# Cowan, I. M. 1940. Distribution and variation in the native sheep of North America. American Midland Naturalist 24:505-580.

# Davidson, P. W. 1991. East Kootenay bighorn sheep enhancement project: completion report. British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Unpublished Wildlife Branch Report. Cranbrook, BC. 183pp.

# DeForge, J. R. 1980. Population biology of desert bighorn sheep in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. Desert Bighorn Council Transactions 24:29-32.

# Demarchi, R. A., C. L. Hartwig, and D. A. Demarchi. 1999a. Status of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep in British Columbia. Unpublished report submitted to Wildlife Branch, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victoria, BC. 134pp.

# Demarchi, R. A., C. L. Hartwig, and D. A. Demarchi. 1999b. Status of the California Bighorn Sheep in British Columbia. Unpublished report submitted to Wildlife Branch, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victoria, BC. 126pp.

# Douglas, C. L., and D. M. Leslie, Jr. 1999. Management of bighorn sheep. Pp. 238-262 IN R. Valdez and P. R. Krausman (eds.). Mountain sheep of North America. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona. 353 pp.

# Dunbar, M. R. 1992. Theoretical concepts of disease versus nutrition as primary factors in population regulation of wild sheep. Proceedings of the Biennial Symposium of the Northern Wild Sheep and Goat Council 8:174-192.

# Erickson, G. L. 1972. The ecology of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in the Sun River area of Montana with special reference to summer food habis and range movements. Montana Fish and Game Department, Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Project W-120-R-2 and R-3.

# Etchberger, R. C., P. R. Krausman, and R. Mazaika. 1989. Mountain sheep habitat characteristics in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Arizona. J. Wildl. Manage. 53:902-907.

# Festa-Bianchet, M. 1988. Seasonal range selection in bighorn sheep conflicts between forage quality, forage quantity, and predator avoidance. Oecologia 75:580-586.

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[another specialist]

Thanks Melanie for extra info makes it alot clearer.

Taxonomic Comments: Wehausen and Ramey (2000) examined variation in skull and horn characters in populations from the Great Basin north to British Columbia and Alberta and concluded that: (1) O. c. auduboni does not warrant recognition separate from O. c. canadensis;

So not based on any DNA test but coimparasions of skull unlike what en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bighorn_Sheep states.

Would still like to see a copy of Ramey, R. R. II (1993) (Ph.D. Thesis). Evolutionary genetics and systematics of North American mountain sheep. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

[Bhagatí]

Figure 6. Jim Hart of Scenic, South Dakota, displays a trophy of an Audubon Bighorn Sheep shot on Sheep Mountain in 1903 by Charley Jones. These animals were last recorded on Sheep Mountain Table about 1910 and are now extinct.

Jim Hart from South Dakota, displays an Audubon Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis auduboni) shot on Sheep Mountain in 1903 by Charley Jones. 1903

Source:
www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/badl/sec1.htm

[koeiyabe]

"Lost Animals (in Japanese)" by WWF Japan (1996)