Headbangers Brawl

Snorting great jets of steam like angry locomotives, two male bighorn sheep size each other up on a snowy mountain pass. They tear at the frozen gravel with their hooves and wave their great spiraled horns up and down as a warning. Finally, the tension breaks, the rams gather themselves with a little backward hop, and they explode toward each other with heads lowered, as if shot from a cannon. The sheep close the five yards between them in a flash, smashing their massive horns together with a sickening crack that echoes through the valley below. Over and over, the rams repeat their charges until one contestant succumbs, lowering his head and accepting defeat. In a small clearing nearby, a handful of ewes—the victor’s spoils—silently munch grass and look on.

Each fall in the mountains across much of western North America, these spectacular battles are waged, just as they have for millennia. Meanwhile, in cities and small towns across the United States,