Mortality Factors Among Yearling and other Juvenile Bighorn Sheep

The most ambitious program undertaken in the 1980-1981 year concerned the most famous mammal residents of Deep Canyon and the Santa Rosa Mountains, Ovis canadensis cremnobatis, popularly known as the peninsular bighorn sheep. A student-agency team headed by Jim DeForge, doctoral candidate at the University of California, Davis, and Joan Scott, master's candidate at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, spent more than 500 hours in the field studying mortality factors among yearling and other juvenile sheep. They worked from Bradley Canyon south as far as Carriso Canyon in the Santa Rosas. The program, which will continue at an accelerated pace in the 1981-82 fiscal year, is being coordinated jointly by the California State Department of Fish and Game and the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep. Mr. DeForge is the staff biologist for the Society, which has its headquarters in Alhambra. Deep Canyon's role in this vital study is largely confined to housekeeping. That is, providing quarters and ancillary support for Mr. DeForge and Ms. Scott, including use of the reference library, herbarium and other reference collections, as well as campground and building quarters for the research team. The group ranges from two to 20 persons at a time. The penned bighorns at Living Desert Reserve, which are maintained by that private agency under permit from Deep Canyon and the state, also have been studied by the group at the same time free-ranging sheep are being observed, both as a control and also to analyze differences in behavior.