It looks like the drought or the pheasants aren’t the only culprits responsible for losing plants! I looked out my kitchen window one morning this week and saw three healthy Mouflon sheep munching away.
They are such a nuisance that the National Park has a lottery for hunters to help get rid of them, especially in the Park.
These beauties must have spied me at the window, because two of them came a little closer to check me out.
This web site shows some of the damage being done by these feral sheep.
Bill Doar is a retired Community Policeman from here in the District of Ka’u. Since he retired, he takes beautiful nature photos and sells cards for visitors. Here is one shot he took of one of the Mouflon.
You can see this guy must have spotted my movements at the kitchen window.
Here is the last shot I was able to get before they turned tail and ran into the hills.
They are certainly a handsome animal, even though they do eat my plants!
A hui hou!
Cute little stinkers!
I understand they are good eating, as well!
Drat those pesky things….. as if it’ not hard enough to get some of your stuff growing in the lava…. hope they won’t be back under the cover of darkness. 🙂
Oh, they do come at night as well as day. It becomes rather discouraging to work so hard to get things to grow, only to have them eaten by other critters that are thirsty and hungry. I see them fairly often during the day, but this was the first time they were this close for pictures. They almost look posed, don’t they?
I live on the Central Coast of California; pretty well populated. Driving home the other day, I spied a big, healthy coyote standing in a field near the freeway. I fear for my dogs, cats, geese, and chickens, of course. Yet I applaud these surviving predators. I cheer when I see a bobcat on the fence, or a mountain lion at the top of the hill (once, only, was I privileged to see that sight). The deer eat my plants; the mountain lion eat the deer. The wild turkeys wander aimlessly yet bravely stop traffic and peck at tires during fall mating season. Those flocks get larger and larger each year. Please hope that there is room for all of us.
I had healthy coyotes on my place when I lived in the foothills of Tucson, and also saw a few bobcats there. We have wild turkeys here, as well. Beautiful things, and I suspect are eaten by the local population to keep the flocks smaller. I remember what it was like to live on the Central Coast of California, too! But it’s been many years ago – and I miss it. I remember seeing a beautiful mountain ram early one morning as I drove down the freeway – different from our Mouflon sheep but very stately.
Luckily, they don’t make it down to my area very often, as I don’t have as much vegetation as you. I’m afraid I would end up eating one for dinner if I caught them eating my food plants. =)
Some of my students have said they like to eat the Mouflon. One of the guys uses bow and arrow to kill them, says they are great to eat. If they weren’t such beautiful creatures, I’d be tempted myself!