Colorado Springs
They are Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the official state animal of Colorado. The rams are most impressive, with powerful bodies, thick necks and massive trademark horns curling backward into a formidable set of fighting headgear.
Now comes the tricky part.
Some scientists believe many Rocky Mountain bighorn rams are not, uh, some of them are inclined … well, they do not only have eyes for ewe.
They’re Brokeback Mountain bighorn sheep is what they are.
That’s right: They’re gay.
The air was warm Saturday and the morning sun beamed steady on the hillside in the Garden of the Gods, a city-owned park nestled in the foothills. Snow-laden Pike’s Peak loomed against the blue sky beyond the red-rock formations as veteran bighorn observer Dan Larkin moved a tripod into position. He focused his spotting scope on a group of rams feeding on the brown winter grass.
Larkin has been a witness.
“You can’t really observe bighorn rams very long without seeing it,” said the vice president of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society conservation group.
He stooped down, put an eye against his spotting scope and gazed upon the feeding band of sheep.
“Those rams,” he said without moving his eye from the scope, “will most definitely mount each other.”
About 10 minutes later, a ram did indeed mount another ram. Observed through Larkin’s scope, both sheep held their position for just a moment or two before they disentangled and went back to grazing – almost as if nothing had happened.
Confused humans
The world of gay sheep was illuminated earlier this year in a lengthy story published by The New York Times (motto: “All the news that’s fit to print and some that’s kind of a coin toss”). The story reported that an Oregon animal researcher believes 8 percent of rams are gay, favoring sexual romps with other rams instead of ewes.
And on Feb. 5, Time magazine followed up with its own story on gay sheep, a full-page report that gave the author plenty of room to tell a heartwarming story-within-the-story involving an apparently memorable romp between his own male cat and a visiting male dachshund.
Anyway, an event called Bighorn Sheep Day was held Saturday at the Garden of the Gods visitor’s center in this city (official town motto: “Oh, Goody. Another Gay Story”). It featured sheep-watching and trail hikes.
And somehow the subject of the New York Times and Time stories came up.
“It bothers me,” said the Bighorn Society’s Larkin, who has been watching the animals in Colorado for about 30 years, “that people connect human emotions to wildlife. I call them the nature-deficient. They’ve spent too much time in big cities and have lost touch with the natural world.”
In other words, he doesn’t buy the gay sheep thing.
“Wild animals do things all the time that some people insist on equating with same-sex behavior,” he said. “The truth is it’s all related to dominance. Anyone who spends time observing wildlife, well, you see it all the time.”
Seattle-based scientist and author Bruce Bagemihl disagrees. In his book “Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity,” he scoffs at the dominance theory. He writes: “The very word dominance itself becomes simply code for homosexual mounting, repeated mantra-like until it finally loses what little meaning it had to begin with.”
(More interesting are Bagemihl’s passages about gay gorillas, gay killer whales and a gay ostrich that runs toward its male partner at 30 mph, stops abruptly and begins a long, pirouette-filled, feather-fluffing mating dance.)
Maybe they’re bisexual
Brian Dreher, a Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist and bighorn expert, also was at Saturday’s event. Like Larkin, he said he struggles to identify sheep behavior with any lifestyle other than the bighorn lifestyle.
“In early January, we caught 24 ewes right here,” Dreher said, pointing to the park. “All 24 of them were pregnant. So something’s working.”
Then Dreher hesitated. He said he wanted to make sure his next thought came out right.
“I have seen,” he said a moment later, “plenty of rams mounting rams. But when the ewes are in estrus and ready to breed, those same rams will choose to mate with the ewes.
“So if people insist on seeing human behavior in wildlife behavior, maybe bisexual is natural and bighorn rams have a bisexual-type thing.”
Which is a theory that would certainly brighten English pop singer George Michael’s day.
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
