356 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



reports of a few animals said to have been seen within recent 

 years. However, Cowan (1940) reports 150 head there at 

 present. Most of the upper parts of the range are grazed by 

 domestic sheep in summer. In Colorado, Merritt Cary in 1911 

 reported that bighorns were to be found in small numbers on 

 nearly all the high mountain ranges, especially in the northern 

 parts of the State. Since 1885 they had been protected by law, 

 but this apparently had not always been well enforced. With 

 better protection and a developing public sentiment against 

 killing them, an encouraging increase in numbers took place 

 in the early years of this century. In 1902, Dall De Weese 

 estimated that there were probably 200 in the State. By 1907, 

 "sheep were reported on most of the mountain ranges of south- 

 ern Colorado, and seemed to be on the increase." The 1939 

 census credited the State with some 2,285 sheep, of which all 

 but about 150 were in national forests. To the southward the 

 typical Rocky Mountain bighorn extended formerly into the 

 northern parts of New Mexico, but at the present day there 

 are few if any left there. Bailey gives as its former limits of 

 distribution the Sangre de Cristo Mountains as far south as 

 the Truchas Peaks, Pecos Baldy, and Santa Fe Baldy on the 

 east of the Rio Grande Valley, and probably through the San 

 Juan Mountains to the Jemez on the west of the valley. Sheep 

 disappeared from the lower and more accessible San Juan 

 Mountains some time toward the close of the last century for 

 in 1904 Bailey could obtain no recent record of them from 

 local ranchmen, while from the Jemez Mountains still farther 

 to the south they must have gone soon after 1880. Sheep were 

 common in the Santa Fe region in 1873, and probably a few 

 lingered among the mountains at the head of the Pecos till 

 the early years of the present century. Bailey (1931) believes 

 that given adequate protection bighorns will in course of time 

 increase in Colorado and the overflow will repopulate northern 

 New Mexico, following the mountain chains. The future of 

 the species seems well assured, for summing the censuses of 

 1939 for the five Rocky Mountain States gave an estimated 

 total of nearly 11,000 animals, of which about half are in the 

 State of Wyoming. 



Cary (1911) as well as Warren (1910) mentions the coyote 

 as an occasional enemy, especially in winter when, in deep 

 snows, it is sometimes impossible for the sheep to escape, 



