Mountain Goat and Cougar fell to their deaths following an epic struggle

[FinsnFur]

Check this out.
The Mountain looks like he still has goat hair in his mouth.

http://imgur.com/gallery/UnJ5n

[Todd Rahm]

That's epic!!

[KySongDog]

That is a sheep and not a goat.   

[Hawks Feather]

At least the goat sheep took the mountain lion out with him.

Jerry

[FinsnFur]

Your right Semp...but I'm only taking part of the blame for that one.  The whole little story with pics is incredibly interesting though.

[Okanagan]

Semp is right.  It's a sheep.  Fantastic photos and event. 

I'm going to stick my neck out a little and say that the ram looks like a Stone sheep which would place the event in BC or Yukon.  Not to be argumentative but just curious, and the internet is notorious for giving the wrong place for animal pics.

Compare these pics of a bighorn ram about the same size of curl and close to same age as the dead ram.  Thinhorns (including Stone as well as Dall) have horns with a smaller base, stay smaller all the way out, fine tips that tend not to be broomed (broken) off, and the horns tend to flare away from the side of the sheep's head as they extend longer around the curl.  That description fits the dead ram on the road. 

Bighorns have massive bases, a slightly flatter outer side of the horn, retain mass out toward the tips, tend to stay in a  plane near the sheep's head rather than flare much, and tend to have tips broken back.

Color is non-defining in these pics IMO.  It looks like the cougar and ram died in spring when the ram's hair would have been getting bleached out of distinctive color anyway. 

Oops.  On looking at the dead ram on the road he has considerably longer curl than the ram I've posted below, so will add pics of an older bighorn ram with closer to the same length of curl to compare.  Compare bases, mass, tips... 
Quite a bit of difference to my eyes. 

Once in awhile a bighorn will have light mass and more flare, but these in the pics are hugely typical.    Maybe Montana has imported Stone sheep into Glacier Park? 







Older ram below, closer to length of curl on the dead ram with cougar.

[FinsnFur]

Great pics Okanagan. They are an incredible animal for sure.

[Okanagan]

This has me curious (the only person on earth curious about these photos!) so I did some checking online.  Detective Okanagan.  The photos of the lion and sheep apparently first appear on the Internet in 2009, with a story that "...someone sent me these pics that another fellow took when he was hiking up a closed road in Glacier."  Not a really tight attribution!

Second, I looked up some thinhorn ram pics, below.  Compare, my compadres...  Thinhorns below, first a Dall, which looks almost identical to the dead ram on the road, and then a Stone.    Much smaller bases than bighorns, thin taper to a long fine point with a much wider flare and spiral out and away.  The dead ram may be a dirty Dall sheep rather than a light colored Stone.

[FinsnFur]

Interesting. Also one of the comments on that pages was, "I think you misspelled Bighorn Sheep"

[Hawks Feather]

Living in Ohio I only know about the little sheep that we now only see at the fair and on T.V. commercials for mattresses.  So I will take anyone's word on what family it is.

Jerry

[Okanagan]

We have both thinhorns and bighorns here in BC and I have hunted both with over the counter tags.  A legal ram is defined by his horns and the BC Game regs define a full curl thinhorn quite a bit differently than they do a full curl bighorn.  So in my small circle of hunting friends it is something we notice and talk about.

Of course, the main factor in what kind of sheep is where the photos of the sheep and cougar fall were taken:  if it is a thinhorn ram, it is hundreds if not a thousand miles north of Glacier National Park.

Added:  I've been tinkering with Photobucket, as Jim knows and has helped me with, and I messed up some of my bighorn photos so they disappeared from this thread.  But I had over done it with bighorn photos anyway so I will leave it.

[FinsnFur]

...the little sheep that we now only see on T.V. commercials for mattresses. 

Thanks Jerry. I needed one of those.