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Conservation Vision 2030

What We Do Conservation Conservation Vision 2030
Conservation Vision 2030

Strengthening Partnerships for Wild Sheep

Wild sheep survive in some of the toughest landscapes on earth — and conserving them requires equal parts science, partnership, and grit. The Wild Sheep Foundation’s Conservation Vision 2030 and Grant-In-Aid priorities focus our efforts on the projects and actions that will make the greatest impact for wild sheep and wild places across North America and beyond.

Mountain sheep hold a special place—not only within the hunter-conservationist community, but among people around the world. Their presence in rugged mountain ranges, deep river canyons, and remote badlands reflects our enduring connection to wild places and our responsibility to conserve them.

For many, simply knowing that wild sheep still persist in their historic ranges is meaningful. But both these landscapes and the species that inhabit them face significant challenges. Their future depends on more than awareness alone - it requires action.

That future can only be secured through strong, collaborative partnerships. A sustained commitment of time, resources, and energy is essential to protect, conserve, and enhance wild sheep populations and the habitats they depend on.

Conservation Vision 2030 carries forward the long-range goals set in CV2025, identifies new areas of greatest need projected over the next several years, and outlines the Foundation’s processes for achieving measurable results to address these needs.

The Wild Sheep Foundation is the only international conservation organization committed to Putting and Keeping Wild Sheep on the Mountain®.

Volunteers, biologists, and researchers do a health check on a bighorn sheep

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Download CV 2030

Conservation Vision 2030 PDF

Download the full Conservation Vision 2030 PDF. (1.5mb | 4 pages)
5 Year Tactical Actions to Achieve Overarching Goals

1) PROTECT, CONSERVE, and ENHANCE wild sheep habitat

Like all wildlife, healthy, resilient, intact, and connected habitats are critical for wild sheep survival.

a) Promote and support active habitat management on private, public, indigenous and tribal lands.

b) Advocate for the application of prescribed fire and other treatments to achieve desired vegetation communities that benefit wild sheep and other wildlife.

c) Support development of strategies and actions to mitigate invasive plants (e.g., cheatgrass, noxious weeds, juniper, and other woody species) that outcompete species of higher nutritional value.

d) Develop adaptive management plans responsive to environmental conditions that repeatedly affect wild sheep (e.g., drought and severe winters) and invest in habitat restoration to counter habitat degradation.

e) Develop, maintain, expand, and monitor surface water sources that benefit not only desert bighorn sheep but a diverse array of desert-dwelling wildlife.

f) A close eye on the habitat - Increase habitat resiliency and monitoring programs to track ecological changes and initiate timely interventions.

g) Promote and support intensive management practices or other adaptive approaches that improve nutritional quality and quantity of available forage, especially for struggling or depressed herds.

h) Negotiate and implement the retirements of domestic sheep grazing allotments that are close to wild sheep range, or range they could occupy to reduce potential for pathogen transmission, subsequent respiratory pneumonia, and disease die-offs in wild sheep.

i) Develop effective strategies, including the use of new technology, to reduce commingling and achieve effective range separation between wild sheep and domestic sheep, domestic goats, or infected wild sheep.

j) Promote and implement conservation easements, strategic acquisitions, and land exchanges.

k) Support mitigation of the negative impacts of exotic and feral ungulate (e.g., aoudad, feral horses, and burros) on wild sheep, their habitats, and other native wildlife.

a) Collaborate with private landowners, tribal/indigenous managers, and federal/state/provincial/territorial managers to establish new wild sheep herds and/or re-establish wild sheep herds in suitable habitats.

b)Promote standardized monitoring of wild sheep herd health and population status to enhance the usefulness of the data being collected.

c) Identify and help create healthy private-land/tribal/public-land source herds as a larger, more available pool of wild sheep candidates for translocation.

d) Continue to improve relationships between wild sheep and domestic sheep stakeholders, building upon the cooperation and successes achieved thus far, to protect existing wild sheep and facilitate the establishment of new wild sheep populations.

a) Promote, encourage, and support the establishment of wild sheep population goals by wildlife management agencies, just as is done for elk, deer, moose, and other big game.

b) Promote research and discovery to inform science-based approaches to increase the resiliency of wild sheep populations and habitats.

c) Help build and expand collaboration among wildlife agencies and professionals.

d) Engage and educate state and federal officials and agencies on wild sheep conservation needs and opportunities.

e) Demonstrate how the connection between sustainable use hunting and the funding generated from it has led to, and continues to finance, the recovery of wild sheep populations.

f) Work with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and other international regulatory bodies to continue to support and communicate the benefits of sustainable use and the rights of indigenous wildlife resource managers.

g) Seek and provide financial and technical support for international partner agencies and organizations.

a) Where barriers exist, strive to increase public access to the wild sheep ranges.

b) Promote cultural relationships and conservation outcomes linked to sustainable wild sheep hunting.

c) Protect current and advocate for new unlimited (over-the-counter) hunting opportunities across the West, where consistent with wildlife agency management objectives.

d) Expand the availability and use of Conservation Permits to enhance funding to further support wild sheep conservation and sustainable use initiatives.

e) Achieve a 5% net gain in wild sheep hunting by 2030 by ensuring that opportunities are added where populations can support the addition of permits and tags.

Dall's sheep ewes

Courtesy Penn Moffat
Establishing WSF’s Grant-In-Aid Priorities for 2026

To more strategically address the needs of wild sheep and their habitats, and align these needs with grant funding applications, WSF will be focusing its efforts to fund the most critical, high-impact opportunities. These priorities have been carefully identified through collaboration with wildlife agencies, WSF Chapters & Affiliates, WSF’s Professional Resource Advisory Board (PRAB), and WSF Conservation Staff, ensuring these priorities reflect both on-the-ground realities and expert insight. By concentrating resources where they can be most effective, WSF aims to build healthier habitats and stronger wild sheep populations, ultimately increasing their resilience to environmental pressures and disease. These targeted priorities represent our true “needle movers” - the actions that will deliver the greatest, most lasting impact for wild sheep conservation.

Increase Resiliency of Wild Sheep and Wild Sheep Habitats

Herd of bighorn sheep in the snow on a mountain side

Courtesy Dillen Martinez
GIA Priority Establishment | 2026

1. Promote and support active habitat management on private, public, Indigenous, and Tribal lands that creates a mosaic of ecologically appropriate vegetative communities or habitat features that benefit wild sheep.

a. Apply active, aggressive habitat treatments (e.g., prescribed fire and timber/shrub management) to enhance forage quality and quantity and restore grassland communities in areas where conifer (e.g., juniper) and shrub encroachment have diminished available food and water.

b. Apply habitat interventions, including water developments, water-source enhancements, and associated monitoring systems, to mitigate the effects of changing environmental conditions known to negatively affect wild sheep. c. Manage or remove exotic and invasive plant and animal species (e.g., exotic annual grasses, noxious weeds, feral horses and burros, and aoudad) that negatively affect wild sheep habitats.

i. Apply treatments (e.g., mechanical or chemical) and develop new approaches to treat cheatgrass and other invasive plants at a meaningful scale.

ii. Undertake actions to reduce invasive and feral ungulate densities in important areas used by wild sheep.

a. Utilize translocations to manage/augment populations and create herds in suitable habitats.

b.Identify and help create healthy source herds to support population recoveries and translocations.

a. Investigate immunity and other biological characteristics of wild sheep populations to understand the key factors allowing the persistence of diseases.

i. Examine the health and disease responses of remnant and native populations of wild sheep that survive despite exposure to respiratory pathogens.

ii. Investigate characteristics of chronic Movi carriers that allow them to survive so that other animals may persist in the face of disease.

b. Develop secure, safe, and effective captive facilities and protocols to mitigate impacts of respiratory and other diseases.

c. Develop and test active or passive disease prevention and/or treatment protocols that could be used in domestic, captive, and free-range wild sheep settings.

d. Develop trials to evaluate the benefits and impacts of trace mineral supplementation for wild sheep.

Download 2026 GIA Priorities

WSF Grant-in-Aid Priorities 2026

Download the full WSF Grant-in-Aid Priority Establishment PDF. (587kb | 2 pages)