Five years later, I returned to Uzbekistan to conduct the country’s first-ever hunt for the Ustyurt urial. These sheep inhabit a remote area of Karakalpakstan, near the borders with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It’s an arid region with vast canyons, the natural habitat of this subspecies of the Trans-Caspian urial. Hunting had never been conducted there before. In search of sheep, we covered more than 20 kilometres in a single day. It soon became clear that the animals were mainly in the lower canyon areas. By the end of the day, we had spotted about twenty sheep, including six rams, females, and juveniles. Two attempts at distances of 540 and 605 metres were unsuccessful; with winds in excess of 10 metres per second, the bullet was deflected by more than a metre. On one occasion, just as I was about to fire at 400 metres, the sheep became aware of our movements and fled. It was only on my fourth attempt that I located a lone sheep, which I shot from a distance of 280 metres. This was followed by a strenuous approach and the challenging task of transporting the sheep back to the vehicle. After an 8-kilometre trek, we returned to the vehicle after dark. The seven-year-old sheep, with its distinctive chest fringe, was gifted to Uzbekistan’s National Museum collection. I also collected genetic material, which will provide a unique scientific resource for studying this rare species.
