Watch: Bighorn lamb plays in mountains near Tucson

Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 Updated Oct 22, 2015

A new video from Arizona Game and Fish shows a bighorn lamb playing in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson among a group of recently transplanted sheep.

The video was taken Sunday by a Game and Fish biologist.

Its mother, ewe #436, can be seen hidden in the brush near the lamb.

The video was taken a day after a biologist monitoring the sheep spotted two lambs among a group of five bighorn sheep.

The lambs appear to be about 1 week old.

Last week Game and Fish officials asked hikers to comply with restrictions in the area a month earlier than normal because they expected ewes in the group to give birth this month.

Thirty bighorns were transplanted to the Pusch Ridge area of the Catalinas from other parts of the state last month as part of an effort to rebuild a herd that disappeared from the range in the 1990s.

There is a year-round prohibition of dogs, other than registered service animals, in the bighorn sheep management area. The area includes the Romero Canyon Trail from Montrose Pools to Romero Pass, the Linda Vista Trail, Pima Canyon Trail and other sites.

The 30 sheep relocated to the Catalinas last month brought the total to 42, including 12 surviving animals brought to the range in November 2013. Two of the recently transplanted sheep have been killed by a mountain lion.