Yes the Big Horn Sheep are in Hemenway Park in Boulder City. It is time to get up close and personal with some wildlife! Errr- okay, don't get toooooooo close, they are wild after all.
Hemenway Park is a favorite hideout for the Big Horn Sheep, and is just off Highway 93 just about a hundred meters north of the road on Ville Drive. That is just as you are coming down the hill to leave Boulder City and head into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, on the way to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas.
When the temps hit over 100 (and we are there) the big horn come down out of the hills above. Normally the animals evade flat land like the plague. Up on the rocky mountainsides they are safe since no one can keep up with them. Down in the flat lands they become vulnerable to predators like mountain lions and wolves.
Yet over time these local Big Horn have found that this park is safe. Better yet there is easy grass and plants, but most importantly, SHADE!
When doing tours with groups to the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam I love to pull over in the afternoon and check out the Big Horn. They are a great photo opportunity.
But PLEASE! Do not approach the herd or try to pet or feed them. The herd has lost a number of members due to a harsh respiratory illness that has decimated their numbers. Of course, they are also wild, not some semi-domesticated petting zoo animal, and if they think you are a threat they will defend themselves.
The Big Horn Sheep basically have all right of way in this region. Last month I was driving along the entrance road to Hoover dam when a Big Horn ewe hopped down onto the road directly in front of me from the rocks above. One word - SEAT BELTS! Okay that's two words but it was a bood thing that everybody in my group had their belts on. The ewe looked at me for a long moment as if wondering why I was interfering with her hop-around. Then she turned and leaped off the road down the escarpment to our right.
Like with all wild life, observe, do not touch.
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