Texas
Contributor: What the great Texas bighorn sheep experiment tells us about rewilding the West
FRANKLIN MOUNTAINS, Texas — Two big rams bolted from the steel trailer, took a few hesitant steps and glanced around nervously at their new home: dramatic mountains in west Texas more than 200 miles from where they grew up. Within seconds of looking in all directions, they scrambled into the crevices of peaks that reach 7,000 feet above sea level. A knot of onlookers, more than 100, burst into cheers.
A victim of livestock disease, reckless hunting and the destruction of their Chihuahuan Desert habitat, these creatures vanished once from Texas. The last documented sighting of a native was in 1958 in the Sierra Diablo range to the southeast, and decades of conservation efforts followed with mixed success. But on a warm afternoon in December, 77 of these animals were captured near the town of Alpine and hauled back home to build a large wild herd — another chapter in the rewilding of the American West.
The desert bighorn, distinct from its Rocky Mountain cousin, ranges from the Chihuahuan Desert here to Utah, Nevada and the Mojave and peninsular deserts of California. The urbanized Texas landscape to which these megafauna return is vastly different from the one where they vanished decades ago. Restoring the natural balance in today’s West will involve humans, predators and other animals, a fragile balancing act that could be rich with reward.
I grew up in the city of El Paso and never saw a bighorn. Though I roamed the mountains of this region, often with my late father, I rarely glimpsed any endangered or threatened creatures, their numbers so small, their struggles for survival limited to the folds of mountains and arroyos. Yet in the last decade, I have seen mountain lions and bobcats in broad daylight and have caught the once nearly extinct Gila trout, slipping it alive and well back into its cold native waters. Now the bighorn was just a foot away.
The desert bighorn is legendary. The ancestors of Native Americans drew pictures of this keystone creature centuries ago in the Coso Range of California to the west and nearby in Three Rivers, N.M. This wild sheep was thought to be foundational to life in the desert: a spirit animal that guided predators, including humans, to food — often its own flesh — water and cover from the fierce Southwestern sun. But after Europeans arrived and expanded their westward settlements, especially in the 19th century, they loosed herds of cattle, horses and other livestock that competed with sheep for grazing while spreading disease.
In the 1950s, Texas began the painstaking process of redressing humans’ disruption of nature. Ovis canadensis nelsoni were imported from Nevada and raised on a private ranch near Alpine — right nearby, in Texas terms. Their numbers grew from fewer than 20 in the 1970s to more than 100 by the ’90s. Missteps occurred too: A herd transplanted near Van Horn was nearly wiped out by mountain lions, and bighorn have taken a hit from pneumonia spread by a rival sheep, the hardy and bearded aoudad, which carry the infection and are less affected by it. But the state rebuilt the bighorn population to about 1,500. Today, around 20,000 of them are scattered across the wilds from west Texas to the Mojave.
These animals are big, about the size of a mule deer, with some males weighing over 150 pounds. They’re also tough: What water they do get normally comes from their steady diet of desert plants, including cacti and other succulents. Herds can go long periods without water, which allows them to stay in places predators cannot follow. They can become dangerously dehydrated but recover quickly when they finally find a hidden desert seep. In west Texas, they will be tempted to explore the desert public lands to the north and northeast. Wary, with laser-sharp eyesight, they often stand hindquarter to hindquarter facing different directions on the lookout for coyotes and mountain lions.
A recent camera survey by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department didn’t spot any mountain lions in the Franklin Range, a department mammalogist, Dana Karelus, told me. Yet the occasional lion does roam here; in the last 15 years these big cats have been sighted in El Paso near a car wash, in a neighborhood and inside the city zoo.
But a stray ewe or a wobbly lamb makes a far bigger meal than, say, a house cat. The presence of the bighorns, then, is likely to draw lions toward the mountains instead of the city, where their visits are already rare. Coyotes adapted to urban environments may venture back into the mountains during lambing season. Omnivorous bears occasionally wander here too and will be enticed by a big meal, even a carcass, as long as it doesn’t take too much work. “It is a delicate balance in the case of urban areas,” Karelus told me.
Humans might glimpse these wild sheep when they venture onto the 100 miles of trails crisscrossing the 27,000 acres of Franklin Mountains State Park. And they should keep a lookout, especially in the deep nights of winter, on Texas Loop 375, a busy highway that cuts east to west. On the day of the bighorns’ release, highway signs flashed: “WATCH FOR WILDLIFE.”
“We fully expect them to stay up high,” Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Director David Yoskowitz said. “They want to stay away from humans. We feel very confident, we just have to respect each other’s space.”
The desert bighorn is bumping into other man-made obstacles across the Southwest. Nevada has built the most robust population through dedicated conservation efforts. But Southern California’s wild sheep are hemmed into small islands surrounded by oceans of city. Their survival and expansion depend upon corridors of travel from one group to another to promote the genetic diversity needed for adaptation. One California herd has actually grown in the Angeles National Forest because of a landslide decades ago in the San Gabriel Mountains that severed more than four miles of State Highway 39, according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Rebecca Barboza. With the road since closed to all but emergency vehicles, the bighorn ewes have had unimpeded access to prime lambing ground, plentiful forage and water.
“Without humans around, they really thrive,” Barboza said. “The forest is an island. These animals need to spread out — or die.”
In today’s urbanized Southwest, much as the animals will have to adapt, humans have to learn to share space with these homecoming creatures. In the Franklin Mountains’ new bighorn herd, it turns out half the ewes are pregnant: A new generation of lambs is due this spring.
Watching the bighorn run, I heard something I didn’t expect: silence. Their uniquely rubbery hooves made nary a sound as they darted toward the purple peaks. And in the fading light, the desert bighorn reappeared and disappeared all at once into the gathering winter dusk.
Richard Parker wrote this essay for The Times over the winter. A longtime journalist, commentary writer and author, his latest book, “The Crossing: El Paso, the Southwest and America’s Forgotten Origin Story,” was published March 4. Parker died earlier this month.
Texas
Glam influencer who drowned during Texas Ironman had battled flu but ignored pleas to ditch race
The glam influencer who drowned during a Texas Ironman swim had been battling the flu – but ignored pals who begged her to pull out of the brutal endurance race, according to one friend.
“She was ill before the trip, she wasn’t okay,” Luis Taveira said of close friend Mara Flávia, 38, who died during Saturday’s race in The Woodlands.
“My wife and I spoke with her to say she was too weak for this race, although a couple of days ago when we talked to her, she insisted she was okay,” Taveira said of the Brazil-born influencer, according to sports website the Spun.
“I still cannot believe what’s happened. She was ill because of the flu.”
Flávia continued “training hard” even while “weakened” by her illness, the friend said.
Just two days before the competition, Flávia shared a picture of herself in a pink swimming costume and cap sitting by the edge of a pool.
“Just another day at work,” she wrote in Portuguese.
Her Instagram account was peppered with snaps, showing her working out in a gym, by the pool, or running outdoors.
“Not every victory is photogenic, not every growth is pretty to watch. Sometimes evolving is being silent, stepping back, saying no, crying in the background, and coming back the next day more aware,” she said in one motivational post.
In others, she said that skill “only develops with hours and hours of work” and sport is “the best tool for transformation.”
The Ironman Texas competition features three legs — a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. The women’s event got underway just after 6:30 a.m. Saturday, with fire crews alerted around an hour later that there was a lost swimmer.
Flávia’s body was found around 9 a.m. in about 10 feet of water.
Officials have ruled her preliminary cause of death was drowning, and relatives have paid tribute.
Flávia’s sister, Melissa Araújo, said her sibling “lived life intensely” – and revealed a piece of her had vanished, People reported.
“You were always synonymous with determination, with courage — with a strength that seemed too vast to be contained within you,” she wrote on social media.
“You never did anything halfway; perhaps that is why you left such a profound mark on the lives of everyone who crossed your path.
“A piece of me is gone, and I will have to learn to live without it. And it hurts in a way I cannot even explain.
“It is a strange silence, a void I knew existed all along — as if the world itself had lost a little of its color.”
Flávia’s partner, Rodrigo Ferrari, described the swimmer as his “love” and said not waking up next to her was hard.
“Ursa, you were the best person I have ever met in my life,” he wrote in a note shared on social media.
A Brazilian fitness influencer has died after getting into difficulty during the swimming portion of an ironman event in Texas.
Mara Flavia Souza Araujo was reported as a “lost swimmer” around 7.30am at the Ironman Texas in Lake Woodlands near Houston on Saturday. According to KPRC 2 News, safety crews could not immediately locate Araujo. The 38-year-old’s body was discovered around 90 minutes later in 10ft of water by divers. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department confirmed her identity in a statement to NBC on Monday.
“MCSO can confirm that Mara Flavia Souza Araujo, 38, of Brazil died while competing in the Ironman event in The Woodlands on Saturday,” the sheriff’s department told NBC News. “Preliminary investigations indicate she drowned during the swimming portion of the event.”
Araujo was an experienced triathlete and had completed at least nine ironman events since 2018. She had more than 60,000 followers on Instagram and had posted about the importance of making the most out of life in the days before her death.
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“Enjoy this ride on the bullet train that is life,” she wrote in Portuguese. “And even with the speed of the machine blurring the landscape, look out the window – for at any moment, the train will drop you off at the eternal station.”
Organizers of the race expressed their condolences on Saturday.
“We send our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the athlete and will offer them our support as they go through this very difficult time,” race organizers said in a statement on Saturday. “Our gratitude goes out to the first responders for their assistance.”
A glamorous triathlete who drowned during an Ironman competition in Texas shared a photo from a swimming pool during a final training session just two days before the tragic race.
Brazilian influencer Mara Flávia, 38, shared the shot of her on the edge of a pool on Thursday — two days before she vanished during an open-water swim in The Woodlands Saturday morning.
“Just another day at work,” Flávia, 38, wrote in Portuguese alongside the pic of her wearing a matching pink swimming costume and cap.
The influencer, who had more than 60,000 followers online, chose the Robin S track “Show Me Love” for her post with the hashtags “triathlon,” “swimming” and “triathlete.”
Flávia vanished during an open-water swim in The Woodlands Saturday morning – the first of three grueling trials that competitors face during the 140-mile race.
Fire crews were told about a “lost swimmer” at around 7:30 a.m., one hour into the pro-female swim, KPRC reported.
Rescuers battled challenging visibility conditions before Flávia’s body was pulled from the water just after 9:30 a.m.
Montgomery County Sheriffs confirmed that the victim “drowned while participating in the swim portion of the event,” according to a statement. The office said its Major Crimes unit will continue the investigation “per normal protocols.”
Shawn McDonald, a volunteer, recounted the commotion before the swimmer’s body was recovered.
The dad, who volunteered with his daughter Mila, 12, said a group of younger volunteers in a kayak raised a flag and blew their whistles, “yelling for help.”
“I heard them say she went under,” he wrote on Facebook.
“I had Mila hand me the paddle and I started calling out to the athletes around us to stop so I could cross. I made my way over in about 30 seconds.
“When I got there and asked what happened, they all said the same thing: She went under. Right here. Right below us. The panic and fear on their faces won’t leave me for a long time.”
The volunteer recalled how one man had a “thousand-yard stare” on his face – before diving into the water in a desperate bid to find Flávia.
“I dove in immediately and began searching. After about a minute underwater, I felt her body with my foot. I surfaced, took what seemed like the deepest breath I have ever taken and went back down. She was gone.”
Boats with sonar combed the area – and McDonald was told to leave the water before the body was recovered.
“The victim was found in about 10 feet of water on the bottom of the lake,” Buck said. “The dive team accessed the victim, brought her up about 9:37 and then brought her over to the shore where she was pronounced DOS [deceased on scene],” Palmer Buck, the Woodlands fire chief, said.
It’s not known what caused the triathlete to go under the water.
Journalism grad Flávia previously worked in radio and television before pursuing a sporting career at age 28.
She previously twice won the Brazilian Grand Prix, and finished third in the Brasilia triathlon event.
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