Desert Bighorn Sheep - Zion National Park

On a recent excursion with my granddaughters to Southern Utah I wanted to find bighorn sheep with them. Many sources, including the Zion website, said that the best place to find them was near the east entrance to Zion National Park. 

Bighorn sheep were extinct in Zion by the mid-1900s. So in 1978 14 were transplanted into the park to re-establish them and that original group has grown to about 400 as of 2015. 

Newborn lambs can be seen between mid-January and the end of April. We were there April 1st and I got the best view of lambs I've ever seen. 

Lambs playing on a fairly steep face. 

We saw them just off the road, about half-way between the east entrance and the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel. The grouping we saw was all adult ewes and lambs, no rams. There were lots of ewes and because I've had lots of photos of them in the past, this post focuses more on the lambs. 

It was fun to see the mother ewe let the lambs play, but keep a close watch on them. One interesting scene was a mother suddenly going quickly down a steep face. I'm not sure if she slipped, or if something triggered the rapid decent.