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- The Bighorn Fire was started by a lightning strike
on Bighorn Mountain.
So much time, and money and effort went
into restoring the bighorn sheep to the Catalinas.
We were looking at this closely, we were mapping it,
we're looking for the sheep.
We're trying to figure out what's going on with them.
We want them to survive, we want them to flourish.
As of the count last fall, we had 75.
We probably have 80 or more because we had lambs
on the mountain.
Three lambs were observed in the mountain range
since the fire began.
My name is Mark Hart.
I'm a public information officer
for Arizona Game and Fish in Tucson.
I cover all of Southeastern Arizona in that role.
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The good news is it's been relatively slow moving
and not burning with great intensity everywhere.
Here in the Santa Catalina Mountains,
we have desert bighorn sheep.
So they're adapted to this environment,
particularly the lack of water.
They have been here for centuries.
The herd in the Santa Catalina is numbered about 100.
We know that historically and from field observations,
but declined until they disappeared
in the late 1990s
for reasons not fully understood by scientists.
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Many theories have been speculated on.
It was not about overhunting.
It may have had something to do with development.
That's a species quite vulnerable to disease,
particularly respiratory infections like pneumonia.
There's also a school of thought that the vegetation,
particularly in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness
was just too dense for them.
Bighorn sheep need clear line of sight and escape terrain.
They rely on their eyesight to see predators coming.
And when they need to escape their preference is to climb
and they are excellent climbers
and can climb at great speed.
- [Wildlife officer] Everybody ready?
(crowd murmurs)
- In 2013, we reintroduced desert bighorn sheep
to the range,-- (bighorn sheep running)
releasing 120 over a four-year period there.
(bighorn sheep running)
(crowd murmuring)
(crowd clapping)
I remember in particular, one release
(bighorn sheep running)
right at the base of Pusch Ridge in an area
known as Laquachi.
They went right up to the group that was already there.
They got into sheepy train right away and knew where to go.
(bighorn sheep running)
It's a big deal to capture bighorn sheep.
That's done with helicopter and net guns.
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But we've had good luck and by and large,
most have made the arduous journey in good shape.
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The big curled horns on the rams are all about mating.
And you can hear the sound of them butting heads.
It sounds like a baseball on a bat
and they'll go at it for hours for the right to breed
with the females.
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Young rams are ramblers.
We see this a lot with the herds around the Tucson area,
where the young rams, who don't really have a place
in the pecking order yet and aren't strong enough
to defeat the more dominant ram will take a walk about
and they'll go from say the Catalinas or the Waterman's
to other mountain ranges.
But they always come back around the time of the rattle,
which is August to September.
And they may get some sparring rounds in with their buddies.
So one day they can take their place
in the pecking order.
The initial burning took place
in the bighorn sheep management area.
And most of that bighorn sheep management area burned.
True to what limited data we have
and some field observations,
they are in the area from roughly Pusch Ridge
to below Finger Rock.
They are in the extreme southwest corner of the range
at relatively low elevation.
They're below the fire.
But not the parts of the area most used
by the sheep historically,
which is why we're cautiously optimistic
that once the fire is over,
the bighorns will make better use of that area
and perhaps expand their territory.
It will be cleared of dense vegetation.
There will be new growth coming up
and it will be perfect for them.
Sprouting prickly pear for example, is a favorite.
It's like a bighorn sheep salad bar after a fire.
For sure it's going to help them deal with mountain lions.
Mountain lions are all about stealth.
Densely vegetated areas are good places for concealment.
They are classic stalkers and will move slowly
and deliberately under concealment toward their prey.
Not all mountain lions eat bighorn sheep, but some do
and they're really good at getting bighorn sheep.
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You never know,
'cause it's wildlife and they do what they wanna do.
So they're not stampeding.
There's no stampede.
This isn't a Disney movie.
They just disperse widely.
We see wildlife adapting to the fire.
Yes, maybe they're not where we would expect them to be.
Sometimes reentering burned areas
when it's still smothering.
A Gould's Turkey over the weekend,
we observed doing that very thing.
And it's 155,000 acre mountain range.
There's still plenty of territory out there for them
and they're gonna use it.
I think it's understandable that people are alarmed
because of values at risk.
We've got firefighters at risk,
we've got homes at risk.
But we quietly say that in most cases,
wildfire is a natural process
that improves the overall health
of the mountain range over time.
Lightning started this fire
as it did long before man inhabited Tucson.
There were fires in the Catalinas
and these other mountain ranges.
And these animals for generations, they've survived
because it's part of a natural process.