After weeks on the lam, runaway ram is caught in Cape Elizabeth

A runaway ram spotted in Cape Elizabeth last Monday. The ram escaped on June 11 while it was being relocated to the mainland from Richmond Island for the summer, said Claudia Richards, president of the Sprague Corp., which owns the island. Photos courtesy of Claudia Richards, president of Sprague Corp.

The runaway ram who eluded capture in Cape Elizabeth for weeks is finally back where he belongs.

The ram escaped from Ram Island Farm on June 11 and was later spotted in local neighborhoods and near Crescent Beach State Park and Two Lights State Park. The 150-pound ram bolted when it was being placed in a pen after being relocated from its home on Richmond Island so it could be shorn.

The ram was caught over the weekend by a team of volunteers, Cape Elizabeth police said in a Facebook post Monday.

“They had placed sheep wool in the Two Lights area as the wayward ram was hunkered down there. The intent of the wool was for the ram to think other sheep were in the area so he would stay put,” police said in the post.

The volunteers found the ram and used a tranquilizer gun to sedate him. He was taken back to the farm.

The ram is part of a herd of more than 50 blackfaced Scottish sheep that live year-round on Richmond Island. The ram was scheduled to live on the mainland for the summer before being returned to the island in the fall, according to Claudia Richards, president of the Sprague Corp., which owns the island. The sheep have lived on the island since the mid-1900s, but this was the first escape.