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Grant-in-Aid

What We Do Conservation Grant-in-Aid

young sheep bounding down a ridge with a gps collar on

Grant-in-Aid Overview

WSF directs funding to a variety of wild sheep conservation and management programs, primarily in North America and central Asia. Our attention and focus is on landscape-scale, impactful, high-priority projects, especially projects that enhance wild sheep habitats and restore wild sheep populations.

HOW TO APPLY

GIA Funding Decisions are Guided by:

  • Alignment with our WSF Mission.
  • Priority goals identified in our Conservation Vision 2030. Applicants should carefully review that document to ensure that proposals address one or more priority goals.
  • Applications submitted by, through or closely coordinated with our network of WSF Chapters and Affiliates (C&As) will receive the highest priority consideration for Fiscal Year 2026-27. Non-C&A applicants (e.g., agencies, universities, consultants, individuals, organizations, etc.) should coordinate closely with their local C&As, if applicable. Letters of Support or other written documentation of that collaboration are required, where applicable.
  • WSF rarely acts as the sole funding source for programs/projects and prioritizes proposals with strong cost-share/collaborative funding from partners, especially in jurisdictions where WSF helps raise funds via the sale of Conservation Permits.
Conservation Impact

Learn more about some of the recent projects funded by WSF Grant-in-Aid .

Conservation Impact FY 24-25

Fiscal Year 2024-2025

Conservation Impact

Conservation Impact FY 23-24

Fiscal Year 2023-2024

Conservation Impact

Conservation Impact FY22-23 Cover

Fiscal Year 2022-2023

Conservation Impact

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

b. Apply habitat interventions, including water development, water source enhancement, and associated monitoring systems, to counter changing environmental conditions known to be negatively affecting 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)