On December 4, 2024, Texas Parks and Wildlife employees, as well as dozens of members of the general public, anxiously waited as 77 Desert Bighorn Sheep were set to be released. Soon enough, the herd would leap out of their cages and into the rocky desert environment of the Franklin Mountains.

These hardy creatures travelled over 200 miles from Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area, where Texas’s most successful herd resides. The isolated Franklin Mountains, an area devoid of disease-carrying Aoudad (Barbary Sheep), provided hope of a new sanctuary for the species.