A mountain animal also known as the blue sheep, found in the Indian Himalaya.
Males’ horns sweep outward, then back and down. Coat color varies with sex, season and region: adult males look bluer in winter, while females and young are often red-brown in summer.
In Manang, inside Nepal’s Annapurna Conservation Area, researchers surveyed blue sheep in 2019 along 60 transects in spring and 61 in autumn. The routes covered 127.9 km in spring and 134.7 km in autumn. Animal records were compared with maps of mountain slopes and vegetation to examine seasonal habitat use.
Blue sheep mainly used grassland and shrubland at elevations of 4,200–4,700 m. The estimated minimum density was 6.0–7.7 animals per square kilometre in spring and 6.9–7.8 in autumn. The survey shows how seasonal fieldwork can describe the use of high-altitude mountain habitats.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In Manang, within Nepal’s Annapurna Conservation Area, blue sheep mainly used grassland and shrubland at 4,200–4,700 m. Seasonal density surveys in 2019 provide a local baseline for continued monitoring of these mountain habitats.