The Latest

GPS and video collars are giving researchers a new look at how desert bighorn sheep navigate the heat, water limitations, and rugged terrain of Sierra El Álamo—and providing lessons that could strengthen restoration efforts across the Southwest.

A new restoration facility in western Nebraska could give wildlife managers a powerful tool to combat disease, rebuild struggling bighorn herds, and return sheep to suitable habitat. With support from the Wild Sheep Foundation, the project marks a new chapter in Nebraska’s decades-long effort to restore bighorn sheep. 

Northwest Montana’s Ural/Tweed bighorns once numbered 150–200 animals. Today, this native Rocky Mountain Trench herd is estimated at roughly 40 sheep. Highway mortality, shrinking habitat, predation, and isolation all threaten its future—but targeted conservation actions could give the herd a path back.

Twenty-seven young campers from six states gathered at Whiskey Mountain Conservation Camp for Camp Bighorn 2026, spending five days building outdoor skills, learning from conservation professionals, and strengthening their connection to wildlife and wild places.

Dan Gates of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management joins Sheep Fever to discuss Colorado’s ongoing wildlife policy battles, including wolf reintroduction, predator management, and the effort to establish a Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish.

Conservation success is built on strong partnerships, visionary leadership, and a commitment to solving challenges before they become crises. Thanks to an extraordinary gift from the Liautaud Family Foundation and the dedicated efforts of the Utah Wild Sheep Foundation (UWSF), significant progress is underway to improve and expand critical water infrastructure for wild sheep across Utah.

In March, the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society (ADBSS) tackled the New Water Mountains #1 project, a much-needed redevelopment of an older catchment struggling to contend with drought and wildlife demand and forcing the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) to haul water frequently.

Idaho's Jacks Creek California bighorn sheep herd got a much-needed boost thanks to a major translocation effort completed in January 2026 through a broad partnership of state agencies, conservation organizations, tribes, and private supporters.

Bighorns in Nebraska? Once home to ~1,000 sheep in the Pine Ridge and Wildcat Hills, they were lost by the early 1990s. Now, through translocations and conservation partnerships, they’re back. Todd Nordeen joins Sheep Fever to share the comeback, challenges, and future of Cornhusker bighorns.

Texas desert bighorn sheep have faced a challenging stretch since respiratory disease outbreaks linked to Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae were first documented in 2019. But the most recent population survey results are offering renewed hope.
 

Three years ago, we produced our first Conservation Impact Summary. The purpose was to “tell our story” beyond just the dollars directed to wild sheep conservation and other mission programs, but more importantly, to demonstrate and share the impact those dollars have. The work WSF accomplished this past year is the legacy of the WSF family.

For its fiscal year 2025-26, the Wild Sheep Foundation will direct a record $2.2 million in Grant-In-Aid funding for wild sheep conservation and management projects, primarily requested through our Chapter and Affiliate network.