Article and photos by Abbye Shattuck, Borderlands Research Institute
The low rumble of hooves rang out in El Paso’s Franklin Mountains State Park on Wednesday, December 4. Hundreds of spectators watched eagerly as one by one, 77 desert bighorn sheep returned to their native range for the first time in decades, marking a significant step in restoring this native species to its former habitat.
The release captivated the region, drawing widespread media attention to record the historic moment. Dozens of reporters crowded around the trailers, with cameras clicking furiously as the bighorn made their way across the high desert landscape. The El Paso Times quoted BRI Director Dr. Louis Harveson in an article covering the event.
“Bighorn sheep are iconic. They truly speak to the wildness of the desert and the desert mountains that they inhabit,” Harveson said. “They are kind of a canary in a coal mine when it comes to habitat quality. So, if we know that we can sustain bighorn sheep populations, that really means we can sustain a lot of different wildlife diversity within that same mountain range.”
Borderlands Research Institute is proud to have taken part in this operation by sending seven graduate students to assist in the two-day capture on December 3-4 at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA), near Alpine, Texas. The WMA is managed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). In conjunction with TPWD, Wild Sheep Foundation, Texas Bighorn Society, and Texas Tech University’s Department of Natural Resource Management, BRI graduate students aided in ground operations where the animals were tested for disease, tagged, and collared. These measures ensure the animals’ safety and allow the new herd to be monitored post-release.
Graduate student Hailey Barton, who has been researching desert bighorn sheep on Elephant Mountain WMA since June 2023, spent hours programming, checking the settings, testing, and activating the GPS collars used in the release.
“I’m grateful to have gotten to work with so many folks dedicated to such an important conservation effort,” she said. “I’m hopeful that these sheep will persist and do well in the Franklins, providing a secondary source stock that will contribute to Texas’s ongoing bighorn restoration efforts. I’m absolutely stoked for the chance to see bighorn on a hike in the Franklins on my next visit! It is so exciting to be able to witness the return of a species to an area where they haven’t been for over 100 years!”
Though restoration efforts have been successful in Texas, desert bighorn sheep still face threats of disease and competition for resources from aoudad, an invasive species from Northern Africa with estimated numbers of up to 30,000 in Texas. Aoudad are known carriers of M. ovi (Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae), a bacterium that can lead to serious respiratory illness in sheep and goats. Now that desert bighorn sheep have been released into the Franklin Mountains, they are shielded from the threats posed by aoudad, as the city of El Paso acts as a natural barrier, preventing aoudad populations from accessing the state park. The release is a milestone effort in bighorn conservation, as this herd can now act as a healthy source stock for other restoration efforts across the state.This monumental release would not be possible without the support of private landowners and the many partners involved who are dedicated to the conservation of desert bighorn sheep, including TPWD, Texas Bighorn Society, Wild Sheep Foundation, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.
