2023 AWARDS

WILD SHEEP BIOLOGIST’S WALL OF FAME 2023 INDUCTEE: MIKE COX

In Nevada and across the West, Mike Cox’s influence has left a lasting mark on wild sheep conservation and management. Over his past 37 years as a biologist, 30 of those years with the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), Cox has worn a variety of hats, from regional supervisory wildlife biologist to big game staff biologist, and since 2016 has served as bighorn sheep and mountain goat staff biologist. For over six years, he chaired the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) Wild Sheep Working Group, leading a collaborative 23-agency effort on wild sheep management in the western US and Canada.

One particular focus of Cox’s work has been documenting the impacts of unmanaged wild horses and burros on Nevada’s flora and fauna, particularly their impact on bighorn sheep, mountain goat, elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and sage-grouse habitat on public land. Cox has been a tireless advocate for wild sheep as he educates the wildlife management community and the public about the destruction caused by unchecked populations of wild horses and burros, which greatly exceed the biomass of all other wild ungulates –including wild sheep, deer, elk – on Nevada public lands. Feral equines currently number seven times the sustainable population, or appropriate management level (AML), set decades ago.

To raise public awareness, Cox spearheaded creation of the awardwinning documentary, Horse Rich & Dirt Poor (available to view at www. youtube.com/watch?v=q6h242vy_ q8). Working with WSF and nearly 20 wildlife NGOs, this film highlights the crisis of wild horse and burro overpopulation in America’s driest state. In these waterscarce conditions, desert bighorns, pronghorn, mule deer, sage-grouse, and other species are pushed out by aggressive feral equines, which guard water holes and chase other species off. In the process, feral horses and burros leave water sources and vulnerable habitat trampled, desiccated, and destroyed. Climate change and recurrent severe droughts only multiply the threat to desert sheep and other wildlife.

An avid whitewater kayaker, bowhunter, mountain biker, backcountry skier, and overall outdoor-sports enthusiast, Cox has drawn and taken three rams in Nevada.

“I’ve been passionate about wild sheep my entire career,” Cox said upon his induction into the Wild Sheep Biologist’s Wall of Fame at the Sheep Show®. “I wouldn’t be up here without a team, including the Wild Sheep Working Group, Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, Elko Bighorns Unlimited and others.” WS

2022 Cic Markhor Award

In 2017, WSF, in partnership and collaboration with outfitters and landowners in Mexico, formed the WSF Mexico Council and launched the WSF Mexico Initiative. WSF Director Emilio Rangel and thenWSF Conservation Director Clay Brewer led the initiative, which uses market forces and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) sustainable use guidelines