The sight of bighorn sheep along the roadways of North Central Washington is nothing new, but lately the presence of the animals on and around one of the region's major highways is definitely up.

The Washington State Patrol says there have big an inordinate number of bighorns along U.S. Highway 97A in recent weeks, with as many as two dozen or more of the sheep in any given spot at one time.

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The heaviest concentrations of the animals have been reported between the area near the roundabout below Ohme Gardens and Rocky Reach Dam.

Trooper Jeremy Weber says the State Patrol has received many calls about the bighorns, but controlling and dispersing them is essentially an impossible task.

"I'll be on the side of the road with my airhorns and my sirens blaring and all they do is kind of look at me like I'm dumb, so they really just do what they want to do and they're really hard to control. So the best way to control encounters with them is for drivers to remain vigilant to their presence."

Weber says potential collisions between vehicles and the sheep are an obvious concern, but the animals also create a hazard when motorists stop to try and photograph and interact with them at the side of the road - something he says can be extremely dangerous.

Bighorn sheep go through annual patterns of what's known as altitudinal migration, since they head to higher elevations in the spring as the snow melts and return to lower elevations in the fall when snowfall gets closer to returning.

Biologists say it's this migrational habit which currently has more drivers seeing the animals at lower elevations near the Columbia River along U.S. Highway 97A.

The sheep are also well known to frequent the lands along other regional roadways, such as State Routes 971 (Navarre Coulee Road) 150, and 153.

Weber says if you see one bighorn, there are likely more that are possibly on or near the roadway, so this should be a driver's cue to slow down and become extra vigilant.

Bighorn Sheep Out & About

Gallery Credit: Kolby Fedore, TSM

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