Bighorn Lambs Born on
March 23 and April 24 2016

On Wednesday, March 23rd, just in time for Easter, the Desert Museum welcomed an adorable male Bighorn lamb. The mother is the same ewe which delivered a female lamb on April 1, 2015. This is the 8th successful Bighorn birth at the Museum, and the 4th lamb for this ewe.

On Sunday, April 24th, the Desert Museum welcomed a second adorable Bighorn lamb! The mother was born at the Desert Museum in 2014, and this is her first lamb.

The two lambs are learning walking, romping and climbing proficiencies by the minute. Visitors may catch a glimpse of them frolicking as newborns do. Visitors are likely to be surprised by how quickly lambs adapt to steep terrain. The newborns can be viewed during the Museum’s normal public hours except, of course, when they are napping behind the scenes or during occasional routine veterinary exams.

“The Museum is so pleased to have two more successful births as part of the Species Survival Program (SSP) organized by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums,” offered Shawnee Riplog-Peterson, the Museum’s Curator of Mammalogy and Ornithology. “And it’s always a delight for guests to see newborns and have the opportunity to watch them grow.”

The mother of the first lamb (and grandmother of the second lamb), a 5-year old ewe is part of an exchange program organized by the SSP program. The purpose of the program is to cooperatively manage specific, and typically threatened or endangered, species population within AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums, certified related facilities, and sustainability partners. By using extensive genetic DNA information, the goal of the program is to breed for the most genetically diverse herd possible, thereby diminishing the need to remove any additional wild Bighorns from their natural environment. The Desert Museum is an AZA-accredited institution.