Upcoming Events
ADBSS Board Meeting
July 10th, 2024 – 7:00 p.m – Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort (formerly Chaparral Suites Resort), 5001 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ. Board of Directors meetings are available to all members and anyone interested in bighorn sheep conservation. The meetings are the second Wednesday of every month at 7:00 pm (Except December)
Enter to win one of these coveted Arizona
Special Big Game Tags!
Winners of these tags will have 365 days to hunt almost anywhere in the state. The hunting season for all tags is August 15, 2024 – August 14, 2025. Winners will be drawn in July 2024
100% of the proceeds from these raffle prizes will go to on the ground conservation of these magnificent animals!
Enter at ConservationFirstUSA.org
![](https://adbss.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/fund-raiser-768x245.png)
Raffle Winners!
2024 Swarovski Optics Package
Chester Johnston, People’s Valley, AZ
2024 Poor Man’s Rifle Raffle
Gary D’Agostino, Queen Creek AZ
2024 Arrowhead Rifle Raffle
Grant Sides, Austin, TX
2024 Tent Package Raffle
Nate Peckinpaugh, Bozeman, MT
2024 Big 40 Super Raffle
(1) Gary McCraw Phoenix AZ
(2) Colin Onaka Holualoa HI
(3) Brad Remfrey Gilbert AZ
(4) Terry Meister Salinas CA
(5) Elizabeth Burk Duncan AZ
(6) Bryan Pritchard Cornville AZ
(7) Giancarb Beltinelli Napa CA
(8) Dylan Hitner Myrtle Point OR
(9) Hub Grounds Kingman AZ
(10) Emory Wriston Bagdad AZ
(11) Roger Hailey Flagstaff AZ
(12) Ethan Coffey Morristown VT
(13) Ken Marshall Elgin AZ
(14) Daniel Acosta Peoria AZ
(15) David Frank Peoria AZ
(16) Craig Swartwood Payson AZ
(17) Michael Jones Peoria AZ
(18) James Lynch Scottsdale AZ
(19) Jacob Kerger Glendale AZ
(20) Brian Trainor Peoria AZ
(21) Kevan Drinkle Lake Havasu City AZ
(22) Brandon Dickey Butte MT
(23) Kyle Fix Flagstaff AZ
(24) Douglas Bowen Ozark AZ
(25) Scott Ercole Scottsdale AZ
(26) James Winjum Great Falls MT
(27) Joeseph Trout Bagdad AZ
(28) James Lynch Scottsdale AZ
(29) Wiley Audis Chino Valley AZ
(30) James Lynch Scottsdale AZ
(31) John Drake Flagstaff AZ
(32) David Brooker Scottsdale AZ
(33) Wesley Monell Phoenix AZ
(34) Terry Tayson Pocatello AZ
(35) Tom McGam Phoenix AZ
(36) Bob Rimza Scottsdale AZ
(37) Chistopher Collier Sierra Vista AZ
(38) Gary Aufrance Peoria AZ
(39) Andrew Prentice Sun City AZ
(40) Joe Schoendorf Grafton WI
(alt1) John Caffall Gilbert AZ
(alt2) Tyler Johanson Peoria AZ
We support other organizations too!
Dear ADBSS Board of Directors,
This letter is to acknowledge receipt by Arizona Outdoor Adventures of $2,000.00 from Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society. A simple and sincere “Thank You” for supporting kids and the outdoors!
Due to your generosity, we are able to provide opportunities in 2024 for inner city children to respect and participate in the great outdoors and the associated healthy activities of hiking, trout fishing, and wildlife viewing to name a few. Thank you for caring about kids.
Again, our appreciation and the best to you,
Dan Priest
Upcoming Projects
Stay Tuned! In October we will list the projects for the 2025 season!
![land donation (2) land donation (2)](https://adbss.org/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/land-donation-2-qg4ychv36eondgk13tjxnzze3r292l4jpamjtvdh38.png)
In The News...
At the 2022 Wild Sheep Foundation annual SheepShow in Reno, I had a chance to visit with Amber Munig, now retired Big Game Management Supervisor, about the status of the transplant equipment used during Arizona translocations of primarily Rocky Mountain, Desert Bighorn Sheep, and Pronghorn. Amber shared with me her “wish list” of what she’d like to have available for future work, which included:
- Refurbishing the existing transplant boxes hauled on a gooseneck trailer. These were originally built by the ADBSS over 40 years ago and donated to the AZGFD.
- Building (2) new transplant boxes that would fit inside a standard size pickup bed and could hold 4-6 animals. Having individual boxes available helps with quicker transport time by not having to fill up a whole trailer load, and thereby reduces transplant stress.
- Ordering a new custom trailer with a lower deck height to increase capacity for larger transplant projects and reduce unloading injuries during releases.
Completing these projects required funding, design work, sourcing a trailer manufacturer, and recruiting volunteers for construction or refurbishing of the existing boxes.
Click here to read what was accomplished in 2 years!
Bozeman, Montana. April 17, 2020. The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), in partnership with Sitka Gear, has produced a new film that, for the first time, takes an in-depth look at what has been killing wild bighorn sheep since the 1930s, and has been slowing efforts to enhance populations of this iconic species.
The culprit is called Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, or M.ovi for short. It is a bacterium carried by some domestic sheep and goats that can lead to respiratory complications and death in wild sheep. M.ovi is not a problem everywhere, or everywhere domestic and wild populations come in contact with each other, but M.ovi has been identified as a pathogen in bighorn sheep pneumonia outbreaks. These outbreaks have resulted in sporadic and, in some places, large-scale all-age die-off events in bighorn sheep, in some cases with mortalities of 70% or more of a given population. What’s exacerbating the problem is these disease episodes also result in low lamb recruitment often for decades.
“Where domestic sheep and goats and wild sheep share the same rangelands, we either have a problem or the threat of problem,” said Kevin Hurley, Vice President of Conservation & Operations for the Wild Sheep Foundation. “Domestic animals can live with M.ovi if they have it, but wild sheep have no immunity to it if they get it.”
Wild & Wool follows researchers and biologists as they monitor the health of bighorn sheep in Idaho’s Hells Canyon and the mountain ranges near Wendover, Nevada, two past and present M.ovi hot spots. The film also brings forward the story of the domestic sheep and wool production industry and the multi-generational family ranches that partially rely on U.S. Forest Service 10-year, term grazing permits.
“As viewers will learn, this is a complex issue,” explained Hurley. “One thing we do know is, with adult mortality rates and poor lamb survival year after year, in wild populations, these infected herds will not last. We can have both on the landscape, wild and domestic sheep, but just not together.”
The film was produced in cooperation with Implement Productions and Foss Media. It has been accepted by the prestigious International Wildlife Film Festival (IWFF), and debuts as a virtual online experience on Saturday, April 18, 2020.
“A whole lot of people are committed to putting more wild sheep on the mountain,” Hurley concluded. “We have the know-how to do that. It’s keeping them on the mountain where M.ovi is making us come up short.”