AUSTIN — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) invites the greater El Paso community to come celebrate the reintroduction of desert bighorn sheep into their once-native range at Franklin Mountains State Park.

TPWD will be hosting a public event on the afternoon of Dec. 4 at Franklin Mountains State Park in El Paso. The pinnacle of the event will be the first release of desert bighorn sheep into their historic range as part of a long-term restoration project.  Desert bighorn sheep once roamed the Trans-Pecos mountains in healthy numbers in the late 1800s. However, by the early 1960s, due to unregulated hunting, resource competition from domestic sheep/goats, and disease, native desert bighorns were extirpated from the West Texas landscape.

Below is the information about the public event:

Where: Franklin Mountains State Park

2900 Tom Mays Access Rd., El Paso, TX 79911

When: Tentatively 3 p.m. Dec. 4.

Please monitor TPWD’s social media pages for a more exact time. (Facebook accounts: Texas State Parks and Franklin Mountains State Park — Texas Parks and Wildlife)

Media RSVP:

Media will have a chance to film the sheep being released from the trailers at a designated “Media-only Area” near the release site.

Additional opportunities for interviews will be available. Interviews must be requested prior to the release so we may better accommodate all requests.

RSVP required for media who want to attend the desert bighorn sheep release event. If interested, please RSVP to news@tpwd.texas.gov by Dec. 3.