At 1315 hrs on October 18, 2011, Bighorn Institute received a call from the National Monument Visitor Center that a bicyclist was on location at post mile marker 8920 on Hwy 74 with a dead ewe. An Institute biologist and a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist immediately responded to investigate the call. We confirmed the dead animal was an unmarked ewe; the carcass was approximately 30 feet below Hwy 74. The ewe was lying on her right side and had most of her left hind leg missing as the carcass had been scavenged.
This matches a description of a ewe hit by a car on October 12, 2011, by a motorist that said she was driving up Hwy 74 when she hit a bighorn sheep that was crossing Hwy 74 from Carrizo Canyon to Deep Canyon. She said the animal then tried to get over the guardrail, but appeared to have suffered a broken leg. A witness had also reported the incident to the Visitor Center and they reported it to us. We were told it was an unmarked ewe that was hit ~1/2 mile below Vista Point and when we investigated the report on October 12, 2011, we could find no injured bighorn along Hwy 74.
Based on this information, we estimate the date of death to be October 12, 2011, and the cause of death to be auto collision.