CHAPEL HILL -- For 86 years, the UNC-Chapel Hill football team has taken the home field accompanied by its mascot, a sheep - a Dorset Horn ram, to be precise, his massive curled horns painted Carolina blue.
The current Rameses, who lives like all his predecessors on the farm of the Hogan family just west of Chapel Hill, is the 18th Rameses in the succession. But unless the current Dorset Horn population trend turns around, he could be one of the last.
The Pittsboro-based American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, noting a precipitous decline in breeding stocks, recently dropped the Dorset Horn from "Watch" to "Threatened" status on its 2010 Conservation Priority List, which tracks the population of livestock breeds in the United States and globally.
According to the conservancy's census, the 6,822 fans who attended UNC-CH's first-round NIT game Tuesday in Carmichael Arena far exceeded the number of Dorset Horn sheep on the planet. Breeds are threatened when their numbers worldwide fall below 5,000; the global population of Dorset Horns is estimated at fewer than 1,600.
"The Dorset Horn is definitely in decline," said Jennifer Kendall, marketing and communications director for the conservancy. "They have become a conservation priority for us."
Rameses' owner, Rob Hogan, whose great-grandfather was the keeper of the very first Rameses in 1924, tries to keep a family of the sheep on the farm. Right now, though, Rameses is alone; Hogan brought in a ewe for breeding, but she died of unknown causes before she had lambs.
"It is a concern," Hogan said of the latest census. "It may prompt me to try to keep a few more around. They're hard to find. I know a couple of flocks in Virginia, and we'll be heading up to take a look at a small flock near Danville next month. I'd like to get a ewe or two to breed."
Dorset Horns are, from an agricultural standpoint, unusually productive sheep. They're steady wool producers, easy to raise, heat-tolerant, and unlike most breeds, they can have lambs, usually twins or triplets, twice a year.
So why the decline?
The problem with Dorset Horns, it turns out, is their horns. Both rams and ewes have horns - rams have big heavy ones; ewes, smaller ones. For most commercial purposes, horns are worse than useless. They get in the way. They can injure other sheep and can break; Rameses' father died of complications after he lost a horn.
In 1949, a genetic mutation led to the birth of four hornless Dorset ewes at N.C. State University. Scientists there bred those ewes and, in 1954, produced the first hornless, or "polled" Dorset ram. Within two decades, 70 percent of registered Dorsets were polled.
Now, polled Dorsets are the second most popular sheep breed in the United States, the conservancy says. The horned originals, like Rameses, are dying out.
"If I was raising sheep for market, I'd go with polled ones," Hogan said. "I'm one of the few people who needs horned sheep. Rameses wouldn't be worth a toot without horns. But he has a pretty specialized job. There aren't a lot of openings for live animal mascots."
