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For its fiscal year 2025-26, the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) will direct $2 million in Grant-In-Aid (GIA) funding for wild sheep conservation and management projects, primarily requested through its Chapter and Affiliate network. Twenty-five projects, spanning from British Columbia to New Mexico, Yukon to Nevada, and internationally in Central Asia, were awarded grants.

Following the close of its most recent fiscal year, the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) released its 10-year Mission Program Funding report, which shows over $70 Million directed by WSF to wild sheep conservation and management, hunting advocacy, public outreach, and education.

Thanks to a unique collaboration between researchers, conservationists, and one very dedicated ranching family, desert bighorn sheep are returning to a mountain range where they haven’t thrived in decades. This effort is more than a feel-good story about wildlife restoration. It’s a data-driven, GPS-collared, camera-equipped, science-meets-stubborn-determination kind of story. And it’s just getting started.

A significant trap and transplant operation occurred in mid-June in southern Nevada to aid a desert bighorn sheep population that has been at risk due to chronic drought conditions impacting both surface water and available forage. The Nevada Department of Wildlife, KUIU, Grand Slam Club Ovis, Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), and a host of Nevada conservation NGOs partnered on a rescue mission.

Spearheaded by the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society (ADBSS) and fueled by a $40,394 Grant-In-Aid from the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), the Rinehart-Newlon Water Catchment project stands as a powerful example of what partnerships and passionate volunteers can accomplish.

This past February, the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission (NGPC) successfully helicopter captured, tested, collared, and released 36 bighorn sheep in the Wildcat Hills as part of an ongoing effort to enhance the state's bighorn sheep population.

In 1980, a new strategy to fund wild sheep conservation emerged in Wyoming.  The state auctioned off a single bighorn sheep hunting permit, raising $23,000—a staggering sum at the time. Fast forward to today, and the concept has reached unprecedented heights. The sale of New Mexico's bighorn sheep tag for $1.3 million at the 2025 Sheep Show is the latest and most dramatic example of how conservation permit auctions have evolved. 

"Would you like to round up to support conservation?" The question caught 16-year-old Nathan off guard as he clutched his brand-new fly rod at the checkout counter. It was his first time in a Bass Pro Shops, and he was already in awe of the towering big game displays and the swimming pool-sized aquarium full of fish he had only seen on Instagram. 

Franklin Mountains State Park is unique in that it is mainly within the El Paso metro area. It's popular with hikers, campers, and photographers, which created a high-profile and safe release location for the sheep. More than 600 people were in attendance to watch the historic release of 77 desert bighorn sheep, which had more significance than most knew.

In Fiscal Year 2023-24, Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), through its Grant-In-Aid program, supported the capture, handling, sampling, and, for many, GPS collaring of more than 760 wild sheep across nine separate projects in North America. Why would WSF invest so much into this aspect of wild sheep conservation?

We are very pleased to report a second year of record results and record funding toward our conservation, education, and advocacy mission in this expanded FY 2023-24 Conservation Impact Summary.

The Wild Sheep Foundation supports a diversity of projects that have the potential to make a positive impact on wild sheep and goats around the world. We invest in big, landscape-level projects like habitat initiatives and translocations but also fund other grant requests that help us better understand conservation needs and that address issues facing wild sheep.