Melinda Kendall and her stepmom were strolling down the beach, south of Esquimalt Lagoon near Victoria, when they came upon a mysterious sight. 

Lying on its side was the nearly intact carcass of what looked like a bighorn sheep. Perplexed by their Sept. 7 discovery, Kendall wondered about the origin of the dead animal.

鈥淚 don't know how he got here,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t'd be different if he was all decayed, but he was not; he was in great shape.鈥�

鈥淲e looked at it for a bit and鈥� there was no damage like cougar attack or gunshot wound or anything on the side that was facing up.鈥�

With bighorn 鈥� a species native to the mountainous regions of inland B.C. 鈥� not indigenous to the area, she was particularly curious how an animal hundreds of kilometres from its usual habitat ended up on Vancouver Island.

But it turned out it wasn't a bighorn at all.

Black Press Media contacted the Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship to shed light on the mystery. In an email, the ministry confirmed the species of the animal remains.

鈥淪heep experts in the wildlife branch鈥� determined this is a domestic mouflon ram, not a wild sheep,鈥� reads the email. 

The male, estimated to be about six years old, may have been part of a nearby herd, according to ministry experts. This could explain how ended up washed ashore on Colwood Beach, the experts added.

Black Press Media found no tags or identifying marks on the carcass that could help identify the owner of the deceased animal.

Mouflons, which are members of the sheep family, are native to eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran. Today, this horned animal is also found in parts of Mediterranean Europe including the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Cyprus. 

Reaching a body length of up to 120 centimetres, with males weighing up to 55 kilograms, mouflons are thought to be the ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds.