THE CRITTERS are a species of wild goat known as Alpine ibex (aka Capra or European ibex), not bighorn sheep; the edifice is Cingino Dam (Diga di Cingino), not Buffalo Bill Dam; and the snapshots were taken in the Alps of northern Italy, not Cody, Wyoming.
Those caveats aside, the images are quite authentic, and appear to have been ripped from Gulliver.it, an Italian travel website. Similar images, as well as videos of ibexes scaling the face of Alpine dams to lick salt and minerals off the masonry, are plentiful on the Internet.
According to the website Animal Corner, Alpine ibexes are herbivores and inhabit the steep, rocky terrain of the European Alps between 6,500 and 15,000 feet above sea level. They're quite agile, as one might gather from the photographs, and have a "unique hoof structure" making it possible for them to navigate near-vertical rock faces and, of course, dams.
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Sources and further reading:
Alpine Ibex
Animal CornerWhere Angels Fear to Tread
International Rivers, 23 September 2010
Last updated 09/24/10
