After mistaking his own reflection in a sliding glass door for a rival ram, a desert bighorn sheep headbutted the door, and then fled, startled by the shattering glass.
The ram wasn’t sick or suffering from some brain disorder, wild sheep experts told Cowboy State Daily. Butting heads with his own reflection was “normal behavior,” given the circumstances, they said.
It was reminiscent of the antics of Bam-Bam, a bighorn ram that lived in Sinks Canyon, near Lander. He was notorious for head-butting visitors’ vehicles.
Shenanigans In Yuma
The ram that destroyed the sliding glass door in Yuma was one of a few sheep that had been hanging around the area.
On April 2, the ram caught a glimpse of his reflection and apparently took it as a challenge, according to local reports.
Video from a security camera on the property shows the ram aggressively grunting at his “rival” before giving the reflection a couple of tentative taps with his horns.
Then, deciding it was time to throw down, the ram put real force behind a headbutt and obliterated the plate glass.
“I would call that normal behavior” for a bighorn ram mistaking his reflection for another ram, Kent Schmidlin, a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s regional wildlife supervisor, told Cowboy State Daily.
Carrying On Bam-Bam’s Legacy?
Schmidlin and wildlife researcher Jack States said the Yuma ram’s behavior reminded them of Bam-Bam.
He was a ram that hung around the Sinks Canyon area in the 2000s. Bam-Bam was noted for generally being friendly toward people and liked getting peanut butter treats.
However, he also liked ramming vehicles.
“One of them that he butted was a Ram pickup; not that I think he recognized the Ram symbol on the pickup,” Schmidlin said.
He and States said that Bam-Bam likely started going after vehicles after seeing his reflection in the paint and mistaking it for another ram.
States lives in the Sinks Canyon area with his wife Diantha, a botanist, and knew Bam-Bam well.
He noted that bighorn ewes (female sheep) were scant in the area at the time, and so Bam-Bam might have been frustrated by the lack of mating opportunities.
“He probably was lonesome, and so he was taking it out on all of those cars,” States said.
When wildlife officials had finally had enough of Bam-Bam’s antics, they captured him and moved him to the Game and Fish’s Tom Thorne/ Beth Williams Wildlife Research Center. That’s just off Wyoming Highway 34 in Sybille Canyon between Laramie and Wheatland.
Bam-Bam escaped the facility once but was quickly recaptured. He died there of natural causes in 2013.
No Room For Two Rams
As for the Arizona ram’s aggression toward glass, States noted that it would make sense for a bighorn ram there to be restless and a little aggressive this time of year.
“This is the time of year when those young rams might be out looking for new territory” and wouldn’t appreciate another ram on their turf, he said.
At least according to what the video shows, the ram wasn’t cut by flying glass.
Schmidlin said it’s likely the ram escaped no worse for wear. After all, bighorns’ skulls are designed for combat with other rams, so hitting plate glass was probably no big deal.
“They’re built for that kind of contact,” he said.
