The Story of the Desert Big Horn Sheep

One of the most exciting awards I ever received was from the Pope and Young Big Game Awards Club for archers. My pastel painting of a Desert Bighorn Sheep won first place in their very first art show. I also won third place and honorable mention with two of my other paintings – a screech owl and a red fox.

I had said I would paint the first wild animal I saw when I moved to Nevada as an entry into the Pope and Young show. As I drove through the Hoover Dam, there on a cliff overlooking the highway was a very large Desert Bighorn Sheep, what a magnificent animal!
As soon as I got settled in my new home I started doing my research, I read every thing I could find on Desert Bighorn Sheep. The first things I found out was they are the Nevada state animal, how they migrated to this desert and adapted to this hot and dry climate. Then I joined the Nevada Wildlife Federation and the Fraternity for Desert Bighorn Sheep. The Fraternity is a hands-on group of people who build water guzzlers for the sheep and other wildlife in Southern Nevada.They also work with the Department of Wildlife and the BLM to trap some of the sheep and transplant them to other areas in the state to keep the bloodlines strong. Through the Fraternity I learned about the Wild Sheep Foundation.
After I won the award at the Pope and Young show I decided to have limited edition lithograph prints made of the Desert Bighorn painting. I put the original painting in the Wild Sheep Foundation auction at their convention in San Diego and it sold for $2,000. I donated half to the foundation. Very exciting out come, and I learned a lot about a most magnificent animal.