At the top of a sheer, rugged cliff-face, George Vandenberg can spot what most of us have rarely seen.
“See right there?” he said. “And there?” He pointed to a few well-camouflaged tan forms. The untrained eye would not have noticed them. What can be on a sheer rock cliff, other than, more rocks? But Vandenberg knows it is a prime spot for the animal he often combs the backcountry looking for.
Few people have seen as many bighorn sheep as 86-year-old Vandenberg, and few people have spent as much time looking for them as this longtime Durango rancher.
Vandenberg proudly showed off his photographs, many of them published in wildlife and game magazines.
“This one was just swimming through the snow,” he said, pointing to a buck with an impressive set of horns nearly engulfed by feet and feet of powder.
Brad Weinmeister, a wildlife biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, talks to Vandenberg often about bighorn sheep.
“He knows more about bighorn than most anyone else,” he said. “It is amazing how much he knows.”
They are elusive creatures with struggling populations. In the early 1900s, the bighorn species had become nearly extinct as a result of hunting. They were the preferred meat in mining camps, Weinmeister said. In addition, domestic sheep grazing put their population in peril. Domestic sheep carry diseases such as pneumonia that can quickly wipe out a wild bighorn herd.
But the populations are also difficult to monitor because of the rugged terrain they like to call home.
Enter Vandenberg.
“He knows so much about the bighorn and he knows everyone, so anytime there is a sighting, he knows about it because people will call and tell him,” Weinmeister said.
In fact, Weinmeister had just got off the phone with Vandenberg when this reporter called.
He is full of information, Weinmeister said.
“Everyone knows him and knows he loves bighorn sheep, so if there is a sighting, they call him,” Weinmeister said.
Weinmeister helps manage a 7,000-square-mile habitat area, and within that area there are five distinct populations of Rocky Mountain bighorn and one desert bighorn group, with a total of about 665 animals. Because of their susceptibility to disease, it is important to keep tabs on them, he said.
Disease is always a concern because it can cause whole populations to die off and other populations can reach an immunity but will pass it along to the lambs and then the lambs will die off at an early age. Herds have been affected for up to 30 years, Weinmeister said.
“But all of this can be hard to monitor because they are in a more rugged and isolated habitat,” he said. “So I am always looking for information when it comes to them.”
Vandenberg is always happy to comply and has watched as the populations have rebounded a bit and feels that the coronavirus pandemic has made people respect the bighorn’s plight a bit more.
“I find that people are much more understanding after the coronavirus hit,” Vandenberg said. Bighorn sheep, he said, are susceptible to pneumonia. A domestic sheep or goat can simply walk by them and they could get sick and transmit it to their entire herd.
“I think this is much easier for people to understand now,” he said.
Vandenberg, a longtime Durango farmer who currently lives in Bayfield, loves the animals so much that he owns replica taxidermy copies of the world’s biggest bighorn sheep and the state’s biggest. They were both auctioned off at charity auctions he attended.
One would think that at the age of 86, Vandenberg would slow down a bit, but he still helps farm hay on the land he recently sold north of Durango, and he constantly makes trips to the high country.
Vandenberg farmed 50 acres of his own land and others’ in the Animas Valley just 4 miles north of Durango for 49 years.
He recently surveyed the plot on a four-wheeler, checking water and pointing out elk tracks.
Vandenberg had just returned from a trip to Cinnamon Pass. While the farmer in him took note of the snow levels, he was actually looking for something else.
“I go up there to look for bighorn sheep more than anything,” he said.
And why not, you could say that bighorn sheep are something of a life mission for Vandenberg. He served on the state Wildlife Commission from 1985 to 1993 and helped lead the reintroduction of the species to some areas where they had disappeared.
Vandenberg has a good view of the Twilights from his land and smiled knowing he helped lend a hand in re-establishing a herd up there.
The bighorns were put on a train in the middle of winter and released on the Cascade Wye.
“It is amazing they survived from that,” he said.
Vandenberg also hunts the animals, he said, but it is extremely difficult to do, which makes it more rewarding. He grew up hunting deer and elk and hunted his first ram in 1968.
“They hang out in very rugged cliff country,” he said. “They are unbelievable animals.”
On his 80th birthday, Vandenberg’s daughters took him on a trip to Wildhorse Island near Glacier National Park. The area boasts some of the biggest bighorns in the country.
Back on the land Vandenberg recently sold, he rounds a corner and enters a wild area.
“I am so proud of this,” Vandenberg said, while driving a four-wheeler through 12 acres of land he has set up in a wildlife conservancy. The marshy plot was abuzz with birds chirping and dotted with wildlife tracks.
“There was this one day, I photographed a giant elk buck coming out of here,” he said, pointing to a break in the fence. “I just wish I had put up a sign that said, ‘Save Room for Wildlife’ hanging behind him when I took the picture.”
There is always room for wildlife, he said.
