Update: 7/11/2019 5:23 P.M.

The Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department is reporting the ram is safe and no longer on the run, and that the Greenville Zoo stepped forward and agreed to take the ram in.

Original Story: 7/10/2019 10:07 P.M.

The Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department is on the lookout for a ram that was spotted in the area Tuesday and Wednesday.

Debbie Reed found the animal standing in front of her garage while taking pictures outside of her home in the town of Center Tuesday afternoon. Rams – which are male bighorn sheep – are not native to Wisconsin, so Reed was quite surprised.

“I was pretty shocked because it looked like a wild animal and nothing that should be around here,” she said.

Reed described the ram’s horns as “about dinner plate size or bigger.” She says she only got within 5 feet of the animal, because she didn’t want to scare him. She turned on her hose so he could take a drink, though he didn’t take one.

“He looked like he was overheated,” she said. “He looked hot, like he was breathing hard, and he was very quiet, not at all threatening.”

Reed said, perhaps unsurprisingly, she’s never seen a ram in the area before, and thinks he must have wandered off a farm, “but far away, because I don’t know anybody around here that has one.”

The ram stayed in place for about 30 minutes, before trotting northward off of the Reed property toward a nearby quarry.

Wednesday afternoon, the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department got multiple calls that the ram was spotted in the middle of Mayflower Road in the nearby town of Ellington.

“Deputies responded and located a ram in the backyard of a residence,” said Ryan Carpenter, Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department. “We had it contained with several officers surrounding it, and then it got scared by a flock of pigeons that flew by and ran off westbound into the woods.”

The sheriff’s department is still looking for the ram and the ram’s owner.

“We believe it was on a farm at one point, because it seems fairly used to human contact or humans being around,” Carpenter said.

And how common is it to see a ram in Wisconsin?

“It’s fairly unusual,” Carpenter said.

If you see the ram or have any information on his owner, please contact the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department at (920) 832-5000.