The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has received Federal USFWS Wildlife Restoration Grant funds and donations to investigate genetic diversity of mountain ungulates, specifically mountain goats and bighorn sheep. The work includes extracting DNA material from mountain goat fecal and hair samples and conducting analyses to compare genetic diversity metrics for Nevada populations of interest with other remnant and introduced mountain goat populations. Additionally, grantees will extract DNA from historic bighorn sheep bones and horn tissues and conduct DNA analyses to assess the lineage/likely subspecies designation of those individuals and compare those to existing bighorn sheep DNA datasets from Nevada and other Great Basin states.
