Being born and raised in West Texas, one would think there’s a possibility that an aoudad, an exotic African transplant, might someday cross one’s path. Especially if said person spent a substantial amount of time trekking canyon rims through cacti, yucca, cedar, and mesquite, in rattlesnake country. One would think, but for me, it wasn’t in the cards. In 1957 and 1958, Texas wildlife officials released about 40 aoudads as legal game into the state’s Palo Duro Canyon, to develop more income opportunities for private ranchers. A 2018 census found nearly 5,000 aoudads populating two mountain ranges in West Texas; decades of costly reintroduction efforts have nurtured a smaller population of desert bighorns, now tallying about 1,500 across 11 mountain ranges, (Renault, 2020). But for me, they’ve been as elusive as the mystical jackalope.

Then, minding my own business in a vacation rental in Doves Rest Cabins (located on Palo Duro Canyon’s rim), I was on a Zoom call with family in Alaska. Out of the corner of my eye, these guys (youngins and all) moseyed right up to the back porch. Who knew?

Marion Renault, January 13, 2020, Texas Can’t Quit the Aoudad, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/how-aoudad-invaded-texas/604834/