{"id":22034,"date":"2017-10-19T11:39:01","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T18:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=22034"},"modified":"2017-10-19T17:58:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T00:58:57","slug":"bighorny-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=22034","title":{"rendered":"Bighorny sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What I have managed to see of this season&#8217;s rut of bighorn sheep has not been particularly dramatic. I witnessed no head butting, and only one coupling.<\/p>\n<p>Even during the rutting season, rams often hung out together. Ewes did likewise.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22038\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/bighornsheep171016bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>To human eyes, this ram has a particularly sly look about him as he sniffs ewes for pheromones.\u00a0<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22036\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/bighornsheep171016ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This ram demonstrates his interest in mating by curling back his upper lip (the flehmen response). This gives him an enhanced detection of the pheromones emitted by ewes in oestrus.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22035\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/bighornsheep171016es.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A ewe tries to escape as two rams, each intent on mating with her, chase her up a slope. If anything happened, it was out of view beyond the brow of the hill.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22037\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/bighornsheep171016cs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, at the base of the hill another pair does mate.<br \/>\n <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22039\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/bighornsheep171016as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; What I have managed to see of this season&#8217;s rut of bighorn sheep has not been particularly dramatic. I witnessed no head butting, and only one coupling. Even during the rutting season, rams often hung out together. Ewes did &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=22034\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mammals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22034"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22051,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions\/22051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}