Heās been gone for more than a decade, but many Wyomingites still fondly remember Bam-Bam, the peanut butter-loving, flower-devouring, car-ramming Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep ram that ruled Sinks Canyon in the late 2000s.
He was unusually friendly toward people, and he loved getting treats.
āHe was a sucker for peanut butter,ā said wildlife researcher Jack States, who lives in the Sinks Canyon area with his wife Diantha, a botanist.
Bam-Bam would frequently visit their house.
āHe would walk right up our front sidewalk and stare through our screen door at us,ā States said.
But as friendly as Bam-Bam was with people, the ram had it out for vehicles. He got the name Bam-Bam for his habit of ramming into cars and trucks.
āIf he could see his own reflection in the vehicleās paint, heād respond to that,ā Kent Schmidlin, who was the Wyoming Game and Fish Departmentās regional wildlife supervisor at the time, told Cowboy State Daily.
āHe would do what a bighorn ram does and ram into those vehicles, apparently going after his own reflection,ā Schmidlin said.
āWeād go up and try to intervene at Sinks Canyon State Park, try to intervene in some of those antics,ā he added.
Bam-Bamās āpeak yearsā in Sinks Canyon were from about 2007-2009, Schmidlin said.
āOne Day, There Was This Ramā
Sinks Canyon used to have a large bighorn herd, but it was all but wiped out by disease, States said.
Bighorn sheep are particularly susceptible to pneumonia, which remains a concern for herds in the Lander area.
In the years after the big die-off, a few bighorns started to trickle back into Sinks Canyon, States said.
āAnd one day there was this ram. His horns were almost a full curl and he was a very dominant ram,ā States said. āAnd he became used to people.
āUnfortunately, the people would try to get too close to take photos and pet him. Some would even try to put their kids on his back, which of course is incredibly dangerous.ā
Bighorns can be tolerant of humans, but Bam-Bam took it to a new level, Schmidlin said.
āHe had a real attraction to people. He would walk right up to people, let them touch him and give him treats,ā he said.
āItās the only instance of that particular behavior I saw in a bighorn sheep during my career,ā added Schmidlin, who retired in 2010.
Bam-Bam behaved typically toward others of his kind, however, States said.
āHe protected his ewes,ā he said. āHe was kind of a dominant force in the area, and carried out his herd duties. But I think people were his recreation.ā
Getting Into Trouble
Bam-Bam was mostly welcome, but he had his bad habits.
For a while, Bam-Bam kept company with another large bighorn ram, and the two were āsparring partners,ā States said.
The two rams seemed to greatly enjoy their head-butting bouts.
āBut then his sparring partner got killed by a mountain lion and Bam-Bam seemed lonely,ā States said.
That didnāt last long, because Bam-Bam figured out that his own reflection in the paint of vehicles made for a good sparring partner.
And he also started overstepping his bounds during visits to the Statesā house.
āHis biggest mistake was he ate my wifeās flowers. And she really wanted to consult with the Game and Fish about this,ā States said.
After heād devoured one too many flowerbeds and head-butted one too many vehicles, wildlife agents tried moving Bam-Bam out of Sinks Canyon.
Catching Bam-Bam was easy.
āHe just walked right up to us, and I grabbed him by the horns. Three or four of us just picked him up and set him in the horse trailer,ā Schmidlin said.
They drove Bam-Bam to a remote parcel of private land and dropped him off, figuring that theyād seen the last of him.
But getting Bam-Bam to stay away on his own was impossible.
āHe came back,ā Schmidlin said. āThe attraction of Sinks Canyon was too much for him.ā
And Bam-Bam went right back to devouring peopleās flowers and ramming their cars.
āIf he wouldnāt have started damaging things, he might have been able to stay there (Sinks Canyon) for a good long while,ā Schmidlin said.
Bam-Bam Gets Sent Away
As it was, Bam-Bam was moved again.
In 2009, he was taken all the way to the Game and Fishās Tom Thorne/ Beth Williams Wildlife Research Center. Thatās just off Wyoming Highway 34 in Sybille Canyon between Laramie and Wheatland.
The research center has high, stout fences that effectively contain bison, elk and moose.
But they couldnāt contain Bam-Bam. He escaped one day and started wandering right down the middle of Highway 34, perhaps trying to catch his bearings back to Sinks Canyon.
That was the end of Bam-Bamās shenanigans, Schmidlin said.
The research centerās staff easily tempted him back inside with some treats. He quietly lived out the rest of his time there, dying of natural causes in 2013.
He was immortalized with a full-body taxidermy mount, which is on display in the Sinks Canyon State Park visitors center.
That means Wyomingites and tourists can still have some connection to Bam-Bam and his story, without having to take a trip to the auto body shop afterward.
āHe was quite a character,ā Schmidlin said.