WSF Grants for Hands-on Wild Sheep Conservation
Bozeman, Montana – The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) has allocated over $1.22 million in conservation grants, most of which will be used to capture, test, GPS collar, and release nearly 600 wild sheep for its fiscal year 2022-23. Some of these captured sheep will be translocated to new habitats.
“We’re upping the game,” said Gray N. Thornton, President and CEO of the Wild Sheep Foundation. “Active management is the only way to put and keep more wild sheep on the mountain. With the threat of disease transmission, abundant predators, and low natural reproductive rates, there is too much stacked against our wild sheep to let the chips fall where they may.”
Between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, wild sheep projects in eight states and provinces will take place with several objectives, all aimed at maintaining the health of current populations and, where possible, moving surplus animals to augment struggling herds. One project is a three-state initiative in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington that will capture and sample 275 sheep.
“This is a multi-year, multi-jurisdictional adaptive management project to investigate further “test and remove” as a strategy to clear M.ovi from bighorn sheep populations,” explained Kevin Hurley, WSF’s VP of Conservation. In winter 2021-22, 249 bighorns in four populations were captured and tested in this tri-state project; during winter 2022-23, 275 sheep in seven populations will be tested.
M.ovi is a deadly respiratory pathogen inflicting wild sheep transferred by animal-to-animal contact with domestic sheep or other infected bighorns. Those wild sheep testing positive for the pathogen are often pro-actively euthanized. Read more









