October 2025

Bighorn Institute
Oct 31
3 min read

It’s Almost Here!

Our 38^th Annual Party and Golf Classic Fundraiser is fast approaching and we hope you’ll join us, but it’s filling up fast! The Annual Party takes place Sunday, November 16^th at Stone Eagle. Enjoy dinner under the stars, live and silent auctions, Frank DiSalvo singing and Patrick Evans emceeing the evening. The Golf Classic is Monday, November 17^th at Stone Eagle and includes breakfast, a professional’s clinic by golf legend and putting guru, Dave Stockton, lunch on the course and awards following play. Unable to attend the party or participate in the golf tournament? You can be a sponsor or make a donation; no amount is too small to help. To sign up or for more information, visit our website: www.BighornInstitute.org/fundraisers

Bighorn Capture

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is finishing capturing and radio-collaring approximately 60 Peninsular bighorn sheep throughout the range (from Palm Springs to the Mexican border) as we write this. Around half of these collars will be deployed in our study area, which includes three herds. The Recovery Plan recommends collaring 30% of each ewe group. By having a portion of the population radio-collared, we and CDFW are able to keep track of the rest of the herd and glean vital data such as reproductive status, health, behavior, habitat use and cause-specific mortality. A few rams will also be collared in each area since they have greater habitat distribution than ewes, which is important for habitat protection. We look forward to the successful capture of these sheep and the important ecological data that we will collect during our fieldwork, which assists the wildlife agencies with management decisions for this endangered species.

Sheep Spreading Out

With the rain we received last month, the mountains have come alive with new plant growth. This has not gone unnoticed by our local herbivores as the bighorn sheep have spread out into the back country. The succulent vegetation provides necessary moisture and electrolytes for the sheep so they are less reliant on drinking water. We’ve seen an interesting habitat shift to the west in the past couple of years where the northern Santa Rosa Mountains bighorn herd is using habitat around Cathedral Canyon and Palm Hills more than ever. While these areas are great bighorn habitat, they’re also heavily recreated and lack trail enforcement. However, we’re optimistic that the trail ranger program CVAG (Coachella Valley Association of Governments) has been working on will become a reality in January as promised. We completely support responsible recreation that enables everyone to enjoy our local trails while the local wildlife enjoys the same habitat without being negatively impacted or displaced.

A New Lamb!

In late October, we documented a new lamb in the San Jacinto Mountains in Palm Springs! This is another double-lambing event that we’ve seen a few times in the past where a ewe gives birth twice in the same calendar year. The young lamb was born to an unmarked ewe, but she has identifiable horns and we know that she had and reared a lamb earlier this year. While we didn’t expect to have a double-lambing season this year, we’re now being more vigilant to see if other ewes will give birth. Lambing season for Peninsular bighorn sheep typically extends from January through June.

Desert Discovery Day

Earlier this month, Bighorn Institute participated in Joshua Tree National Park Association’s Desert

Discovery Day hosted in Twentynine Palms. It was a great turnout of families looking to learn about our incredible desert ecosystem. We had a booth about the bighorn where we gave out stickers, puzzle sheets and coloring pages for kids and information about the sheep! We always enjoy educating the public about the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep and especially these youngsters who could be future conservationists.

Seeing Sheep?

The weather is cooling down so it’s the perfect time to start hiking again if you’re just returning to the desert or didn’t brave the summer heat! If you enjoy hiking in the Coachella Valley you might get lucky and see bighorn sheep from one of the trails. If you do, please let us know! You can log your sheep sightings for free to our project on iNaturalist through the app or their website. Your sightings help us keep track of the sheep since most of them are unmarked. You never know how your observation might help. For more information on how to get involved and become a citizen scientist, visit our website: www.BighornInstitute.org/citizen-science