William "Burch" Carson

Born in 1907, Burch Carson grew up exploring the rugged West Texas mountains near his childhood home in Van Horn. Trained as a taxidermist, and equipped with an intimate knowledge of local species, he was hired by the Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission to survey desert bighorn sheep populations in the Trans-Pecos. In 1941, he estimated that only 150 sheep remained, with later tracking finding that their numbers had dropped to 75 or fewer by 1945. His studies identified that the sheep’s challenges extended beyond its history of unregulated hunting, and later included infections from Old World diseases introduced by domestic sheep, and barriers posed by net-wire fences that limited the bighorns’ ability to find water and mates. Carson’s research led to the creation of the Sierra Diablo Wildlife Managment Area in 1945, and reintroduction efforts in the 1959.