Urials inhabit moderately to very arid habitats at an altitude range from below the sea level in the Trans-Caspian lowlands to above 4,000 m a.s.l. in the Pamirs, Hindu Kush and Himalayas. They prefer hills, undulating terrain and gentle slopes, but also use cliffs. Urials occur in grasslands and open woodlands, e.g., of almond Amygdalus sp., pistachio Pistacia sp. and juniper Juniperus sp., as well as cold deserts with scarce vegetation dominated by subshrubs. Urial may also forage at crop fields. They use cavities in slopes or cliffs for shelter or rest under shrubs.

Urial are gregarious with group sizes reaching more than hundred individuals, where local population sizes is sufficiently large. The average Urial group size in Golestan National Park, Iran with over 4,000 individuals was around 29 individuals (Ghoddousi et al. 2016a). Urial densities were higher (21.77 vs. 0.15 individuals/km²) near ranger stations, which provide protection from poaching (Ghoddousi et al. 2016a). Herds are smaller and often sexually segregated during spring and summer. They are sexually dimorphic, non-territorial and promiscuous. The reproductive cycle begins with the rut in late November. Females give birth to one or less often two lambs (Michel et al. 2019) in April-June. Rut and lambing periods vary between different parts of the range. Main predators are large felid and canid carnivores and occasionally golden eagle on lambs (Karami et al. 2016). Females typically give first birth after two years, males are sexually mature at three years, but are fully mature at eight years. Maximum lifespan in the wild is 11 years (Baskin and Danell 2003).

Ovis vignei arkal
The plateau Ustyurt and Mangyshlak peninsula represent clay deserts at elevations of 150-175 m asl. The climate is sharply continental. Sheep inhabit clay and Cretaceous cliffs (“chinks”) and ravines or hill slopes of a different steepness. Males prefer more open parts of a relief whereas females and young animals are attracted to the broken relief (Fedosenko 2002).

Ovis vignei bochariensis
Habitats of the Tajik Urial are characterized by aridity and continental climate. This subspecies occurs at altitudes between 500 and 2,200 m asl. It prefers the pistachio woodlands or other shrubs located on hilly watersheds of low ridges with obligatory presence of deep gorges with steep slopes (Fedosenko 2002).

Ovis vignei cycloceros
Afghan Urial usually use rounded, broken mountain terrain, plateau, gentle slopes and hills with gorges and at lower altitudes between 600 and 2,500 m, in southern Pakistan below 1,200 m asl but readily access precipitous terrain as escape cover. Most habitats are open woodlands with some shrub vegetation, but they occur as well in degraded habitats (Groves and Leslie 2011, Fedosenko 2002). In the Hazarajat, Afghanistan, local people have indicated that Urials appear to remain permanently within some specific areas and move throughout these with predictable seasonal migrations. There are two major migrations – one into the lambing areas in late May and one into the rutting area in mid-November. Rutting behaviour occurs from mid-December to mid-January (WCS Afghanistan 2014; www.afghanistan.wcs.org, accessed 19-01-2014).

Ovis vignei punjabiensis
The habitat of Punjab Urial is the scrub forest in Salt and Kala Chitta Ranges. In the Salt Range it is typically associated with lower rounded stony hills sparsely covered with wild olive Olea ferruginea and phulai Acacia modesta. The distribution of the subspecies in Pakistan is between the Indus and Jhelum rivers at elevations of 250-1,500 m. The reproductive cycle begins with the rut in mid-October and November with a peak of activity in the first half of November. Females give birth to one or two lambs in early April. Main predators are leopard Panthera pardus and jackal Canis aureus.

Ovis vignei vignei
The habitats of this form are relatively gentle slopes at high altitudes of more than 2,500 m, up to 4,000 m asl. and more, characterized by aridness, severity of climate and semi-desert vegetation with scarce forage and almost complete lack of shrubs (Fedosenko 2002, Siraj-Ud-Din et al. 2016). In Ladakh, Urial primarily use rolling and moderately steep slopes along the lower portion of the Indus and Shyok valleys, rarely using the steeper mid and higher elevation areas occupied by ibex and blue sheep (Namgail et al. 2010). Increasingly however, Urials seem to be taking refuge in possibly suboptimal steep areas in the lower valleys as the gentler ones are coming under different land use (Raghavan et al. 2003, Raghavan and Bhatnagar 2006).

This species occurs in Afghanistan, northwestern India (Ladakh), central and eastern Iran, southwestern Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Wild sheep reported from Oman (where it has possibly been introduced) have been considered as urial. In Iran, following Rezaei et al. (2010) (and unlike Karami et al. 2016 or Yusefi et al. 2019, which assigned the Ovis in all areas to either of the two species), we considered a zone of occurrence of hybrids between O. gmelini and O. vignei. The exact extent of this hybrid zone and the status of certain populations of wild sheep there are uncertain. Therefore, we opted for the most conservative scenario at the province level (due to data limitations) and delineate the species boundaries accordingly. We considered the easternmost provinces (i.e., Golestan, North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, South Khorasan, and Sistan and Baluchistan) as the 'confirmed' range of urial as we had higher certainty about urial presence. We suspect that, for example, Kerman or parts of Semnan provinces could also be included in urial range, but we opted for being more conservative as higher phenotypic diversity in wild sheep in these provinces is observable. Our tentative hybrid zone is also included in the description of the geographic range in this assessment and mapped as 'Presence Uncertain' with a note that there is a higher possibility of hybridization in this area.

Ovis vignei arabica (Arabian or Oman Urial)
There is no recent information available on the occurrence of wild sheep in the Jebal-Akhdar mountains in northern Oman, which had been attributed to urial (Fedosenko, 2002). This population is not mentioned by Damm and Franco (2014), it is unknown if it still exists and what its origin (autochthonous or introduced) had been (S. Ross, pers. comm. 2020).

Ovis vignei arkal (Ustyurt or Transcaspian Urial or Arkal)
The distribution range of this subspecies is not clearly delimitated from the range of O. v. cycloceros. Groves and Grubb (2011) merge both subspecies in one species, but distinguish two subspecies. They consider the urial in Turkmenistan and northeastern Iran as belonging to this subspecies. Other sources (e.g., Fedosenko 2002) distinguish the urial in the Large and Small Balkhan and Kopet-Dagh mountain ranges in Turkmenistan and further to the south in northeastern Iran as O. v. cycloceros and consider only the urial in the Ustyurt as O. v. arkal. Following the latter determination, the subspecies is found in southwest Kazakhstan, northwest Turkmenistan and northwest Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan) where it inhabits the western part of the Ustyurt plateau north and east of Kara-Bogaz-Gol Gulf, including Kaplankyr Plateau, Kazakhly-Sor, the low mountains on the Mangyshlak Peninsula and other areas with cliffs and ravines in Mangystau Province.

Ovis vignei bochariensis
The Bukhara urial occurs in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It is found north of the Amu Darya and Panj rivers, where it inhabits the Kugitang and Baisuntau mountains, the Babatagh, Aktau and Panj Karatau ranges, the Surkhkuh, the Vakhsh range on the east bank of the Vakhsh river and the Hazratishoh Range (Fedosenko 2002).

Ovis vignei cycloceros
In Afghanistan, urial populations were known to occur throughout the Hindu Kush and the mountains of central Afghanistan, extending from the Zebak mountains in the north to the Seyah Koh range in the southwest. Urial occurred in the Ajar Valley Reserve, from where animals were known to migrate into distant valleys near the Band-e Amir National Park (both in Bamiyan Province). Its presence was established in Zebak area during 1976 surveys, but it was not known how far the species ranged into Badakhshan Province. In the east of Kabul, the urial was found in the Kohe Safi region of Kapisa Province (Petocz 1973). Specimens collected from hunters show that its range extended towards the Lataband Pass area near Kabul. Pictures of two captured urial lambs, kept in Khak-e Jabbar and reports by local people confirmed that the species was still extant there in 2015 (A. Kh. Khaurin, pers. comm. 2017). Other photographed poached animals in 2015 also confirmed its presence in Takhar Province (S. Ostrowski, pers. comm. 2020). The subspecies was also reported from the Safed Koh range in Herat and Badghis Provinces. Wildlife Conservation Society surveys since 2006 have confirmed urial presence within the Bamyan Plateau bounded roughly by Band-e-Amir, Saighan, Ajar Valley, southern Samangan, southeastern Saripul and Yakawlang-Sulej, although numbers are very low or even absent altogether in parts of their previous range within Badakhshan and the eastern forests (www.afghanistan.wcs.org, accessed 19-01-2014).

In Iran, this subspecies (often referred as subspecies O. v. arkal) occurs in rolling hills and on gentle mountain slopes in the eastern country. There are remarkable populations in protected areas of the northeastern country including Golestan National Park, Sarigol National Park, Serany Protected Area and Tandureh National Park (Farhadinia et al. 2014, Farhadinia et al. 2018, Ghoddousi et al. 2019, Karami et al. 2016, Yousefi et al. 2019).

For Pakistan, a distribution map for urial in the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) is given by Malik (1987), showing its scattered occurrence in the Districts of Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Northern Waziristan, Karak, Kohat, Orakzai, Kurram, Peshawar, Mardan, Abbottabad, and Swat. According to the report by Roberts (1985) in Baluchistan O. v. cycloceros were widely distributed up to 2,750 m on gentler slopes of the major mountain ranges. The Conservator Wildlife & National Parks of Baluchistan confirmed urial occurrence in protected areas for Hingol National Park, and the community game reserves Torghar, Dureiji, Shah Noorani, Baran Lakh and Talo Band (A. Ali, pers. comm. 2019). In Sindh, the Afghan urial occurs in the Kirthar mountains, especially in the Mari-Mangthar range (District Karachi) and in Dumbar, Kambuh and Karchat mountains (District Dadu) (Virk 1991).

The subspecies is found in Turkmenistan, where its distribution stretches south-eastwards in scattered populations from the Large (about 39°40’N and 54°30’E) and Small Balkhan mountains north of Nebit-Dagh, through the Kopet-Dagh mountains, in the mountains on the right bank of the Tejen, in an area between the Kushka and Murgab rivers, and in the ravines and rolling hills of Namansaar, Yer Oilanduz (Badkhyz) as far east as Southern Karabil (about 36°20’N and 64°30’N) (Fedosenko 2002).

Ovis vignei punjabiensis
The distribution area of this subspecies in Pakistan is enclosed by the Indus and the Jhelum rivers and the forest belt of the Himalayan foothills. The taxonomic status of urial living along the west bank of the Indus, adjacent to the Punjab urial’s range, is uncertain (Schaller and Mirza, 1974). The subspecies is found in small scattered populations in the Kala Chitta and in the Salt range in Punjab Province up to 1,500 m a.s.l. Frisina et al. (2006) reported 14 subpopulations in two areas: Kala Chitta Range (estimated area of occupancy 100 km²) and Salt Range (estimated area of occupancy 1,265 km²).

Ovis vignei vignei
The taxonomic status of the urial population recently reported in Wakhan, Ishkashim and Zebak districts of Badakhshan, Afghanistan (Michel et al. 2009, Simms et al. 2014) and Baroghil National Park, Pakistan (Khurshid Ali Shah, pers. comm. 2019), and until the early 2000s in the southern slopes of Shakhdara Range at the right bank of Panj River (southwestern part of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province, Tajikistan) (Luzhevsky 1977; Sapozhnikov 1976) is uncertain. These populations form scattered groups, isolated from the range area of O. v. bochariensis and possibly also from the range of O. v. cycloceros in Afghanistan, but likely connected to urial populations in the very northern part of Pakistan (Michel et al. 2009).

In India, this subspecies occurs only in the Union Territory of Ladakh (erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir Province), where it is distributed discontinuously in a narrow band along the valley-bottom, to the foothill boundary of the Indus and Shyok-Nubra rivers, and some of their major tributaries. Most urial are found along the Indus valley westward from the village of Likchey to that of Khalsi, with additional herds around the junction of the Nubra and Shyok valleys (Fox et al. 1991a; Mallon 1983, 1991), where they appeared to be restricted between Panamik and Diskit (Bhatnagar & Wangchuk 2001). Ghoshal et al. (2018) found urial scattered in small patches across the Leh District mainly along the Indus River and in Shyok-Nubra valley primarily along the right bank Shyok and Nubra rivers, with scattered populations along their left bank. Further, in Kargil District, urial seemed missing across vast areas of potential habitat but distribution was highly clustered in Heniskot and Takmachik areas. One of the best areas for urial in Ladakh was the Nindum-Fotula area where herds of close to ca. 100 urial were reported (Raghavan and Bhatnagar 2006).

In Pakistan, Schaller (1977) and Roberts (1985) gave the major river valleys of the Kunar, Chitral river, Indus, Gilgit river and Shyok as the main range of Ladakh urial. Ladakh urial is still widely distributed, mainly in Gilgit-Baltistan, but only in very small isolated populations. In Khyber-Pakhtunkwa, Chitral District, it still inhabited the right bank of the Kunar river, from Chitral southwards to Drosh (Anonymous, 1986). Localities on the east bank of the Kunar river, as well as from north of Chitral (Anonymous 1986; Zool. Surv. Dept., 1987) were not confirmed. Michel et al. (2009) quote reports from local people about urial presence in the upper Yarkhun Valley, close to the border with Afghanistan at Baroghil Pass. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Gilgit District, Hess (1990) was able to locate only one locality where urial survived in 1985-86; reliable informants indicated a population of around 27 animals on the right side of the lower Miatsil river (Hispar valley). Khan and Zahler (2004) confirmed the existence of small populations of Ladakh urial in southern Gilgit and Diamer districts Along with Siraj-ud-Din et al. (2016), which more recently confirmed the species’ presence mainly in Bunji, and also in Nanga Parbat, Nagar and Skardu areas.

Hybrid populations
The hybrid population, Alborz red sheep (Ovis gmelini gmelini x Ovis vignei arkal/cycloceros) (Valdez et al. 1978) occurs in north-central Iran in the Alborz Mountains in Tehran and Alborz provinces (Varjin Protected Area, Central Alborz Protected Area, Khojir National Park, Sorkheh Hesar National Park), east to the Parvar Protected Area and south into the Kavir National Park. The exact western, eastern and southern limits of its distribution are undetermined, but generally sheep in central Alborz Mountains are considered as belonging to this hybrid form.

The Kerman sheep occurring east of 55°E in the Khabr National Park and Baft mountains in Kerman Province has been suggested to be a hybrid population (Ovis vignei cycloceros [blanfordti] x Ovis gmelini laristanica). (Valdez 2008).

Hybrids between O. gmelini and O. vignei may occur also in other areas of Iran, including the provinces central and northern Fars, eastern Hormozgan, eastern Isfahan, Qom, eastern Semnan, and Yazd.

Ovis vignei has been listed on CITES Appendix I (O. v. vignei) and II (all other subspecies). Between COP 17 (2016) and COP 18 (2019) O. vignei had been listed in Appendix I as O. aries vignei, and in Appendix II as Ovis aries [except the subspecies included in Appendix I, the subspecies O. a. isphahanica, O. a. laristanica, O. a. musimon and O. a. orientalis, which are not included in the Appendices, and the domesticated form O. a. aries, which is not subject to the provisions of the Convention]). At CITES COP18 (2019) the Parties decided to divert from Wilson and Reeder 2005 and adopted as standard reference the taxonomy of the genus Ovis in Valdez and Weinberg (2011), leading to the listing of O. vignei as several species: O. v. vignei as O. vignei in Appendix I and all other subspecies as O. arabica, O. arkal, O. bochariensis, O. cycloceros, and O. punjabiensis (CITES 2020).

In Afghanistan, Urial reside seasonally or permanently in Bamyan Plateau Protected Area, Wakhan National Park and occasionally in Band-e Amir National Park and Wakhan National Park. So far, these protected areas are poorly enforced against poaching and unregulated livestock grazing. In Afghanistan, O. vignei was placed on the country’s first Protected Species List in 2009, prohibiting all hunting and trading of this species within the country. The Government of Afghanistan supported technically by the Wildlife Conservation Society continues to search for other currently unidentified populations of Urial, and is also beginning to put into place protection and enforcement measures around existing strongholds to ensure that Urial will continue to survive in Afghanistan (WCS Afghanistan 2014, www.afghanistan.wcs.org, accessed 19-01-2014). Conservation measures implemented: 1) Extensive surveys of Urial populations and distributions in potential habitats and monitoring of populations in protected areas; 2) Involvement of local traditional hunters and other community members in protection activities as community rangers; 3) In Wakhan awareness raising on national and local regulations amongst communities and armed forces in the area; 4) Preventive vaccination of livestock against diseases transmissible to Urial in Wakhan National Park and Bamyan Plateau Protected Area; and 5) Support local communities in preventing damage to crops (e.g., protective measures, adapted selection of crops). In the future ecotourism, Urial viewing and hunting tourism could also be explored as sources of revenue for local people and incentive to protect the species.

In India, the Ladakh Urial is as a threatened species by the Government of India under its Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 and its subsequent amendments. Hemis National Park (Ladakh) contains the only Urial population currently found in a protected area in India. Raghavan and Bhatnagar (2006) suggest that Ladakh has limited arable land, pasture, food and water resources that are shared between humans, livestock and wild animals. Therefore, people living in close contact with the wild animals are the primary stakeholders in any conservation and management action adopted for these animals. They propose the following conservation measures: 1) Research and monitoring with regard to Urial population, their ecology and rangeland use by Urial and livestock; 2) strict enforcement of the hunting ban, by improving effectiveness of protection staff; 3) Community-based conservation action, including active involvement of local people in conservation of Urial and its habitat, education, reduction of people’s dependence on pasture resources. Further, the country’s national landscape level, participatory conservation strategy, the Project Snow Leopard, will focus on Urial conservation outside wildlife protected areas too. Further, two new Wildlife Sanctuaries, Suru Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and Zanskar High Altitude Wildlife Sanctuary, are being set up in the Kargil district of the newly designated Union Territory of Ladakh, which will enhance Urial conservation in the country.

In Iran, Urial is a protected species that can be hunted under licences issued by the Department of the Environment. Unfortunately, the exact numbers of Urials shot each year by hunters are not available and differ substantially from year to year due to contrasting policies of promoting trophy hunting or blanket bans on all hunting according to change of leadership and conservation vision at the Department of Environment. When authorized by the DoE leadership hunting under a special licence is permitted in a number of protected areas (e.g., Heidary Protected Area). Urial occurs in several protected areas in Iran (Farhadinia et al. 2014, 2018; Ghoddousi et al. 2016a; Karami et al. 2016; Yusefi et al. 2019). However, even so the government invests significantly at combating it, poaching prevails in most protected areas (Jowkar et al. 2016; Ghoddousi et al. 2019) in spite of the hefty fines of around 1,785 Euro (i.e., 250,000,000 IRR; 1 Euro ~ 140,000 IRR 2020).

In Kazakhstan, Urial is listed in the Red Book and thus formally protected from any extractive use. The species is found in Ustyurt Strict Nature Reserve and in several reserves and provincial parks. In the area of the sacred site Beket-Ata Urial is traditionally protected from poaching and the animals are habituated to visitors. In the Aktau-Buzachin Reserve limited hunting based on a quota of annually 5 to 20 rams had been used as a source of funding for conservation activities (Fedosenko and Weinberg 1999). This quota seemed sustainable (Frisina 2002), but the program ended in the early 2000s and since then no legal hunting takes place in Kazakhstan. Discussions are ongoing, if the introduction of a legal hunting program, based on sound monitoring and conservatively set quotas, directly benefiting protected areas and local rural people might help to reduce poaching and to recover Urial numbers.

In Pakistan, Urial is a protected species, but permits for hunts in managed areas can be issued at provincial level. Several protected areas have mostly very small numbers of Urial and the level of effective protection is unclear. Managed game reserves have been effective in restoring and conserving of Urial including, e.g., Torghar (Frisina et al. 2004, Arshad and Khan 2009) and Dureji (Frisina et al. 2006) areas in Baluchistan (O. v. cycloceros), Kalabagh (Awan et al. 2006) in Punjab (O. v. punjabensis), and Bunji in Gilgit-Baltistan (O. v. vignei). Some of these areas not only prevent poaching but also prohibit or regulate livestock grazing, like Kalabagh Game Reserve (Awan et al. 2016). In the Bunji Conservancy, the possibility of trophy hunting revenues play an incentive role to better protect the Ladakh urial, as it does for markhor. The main challenges are the vastness of an area difficult to control from outsiders, the large number of people and communities inhabiting the area and anticipated conflicts, and currently the lack of significant investment at protecting the species in anticipation of possible revenues from trophy hunting (S. Ostrowski, pers. comm. 2019).

In Tajikistan, Urial is legally protected as species listed in the Red Book. A limited number of permits is annually issued for trophy hunting. Urials occur in the Dashtijum Strict Nature Reserve but had been under pressure from poaching there and in the adjacent areas. Also, other protected areas have limited effect in terms of protection of Urial from poaching and impact of livestock. The establishment of game management areas managed by communities or local family businesses where trophy hunting locally benefits Urial conservation and community well-being has potential to be expanded (Michel 2014). Breeding enclosures, as the one already established in Khatlon Province, may have rather adverse impact if they distract attention from the conservation of free ranging populations, are not attractive for responsible hunters and bear risks of inbreeding, disease and hybridizing with European Mouflon if kept in the same area.

In Turkmenistan, the three subspecies (O. v. arkal, bochariensis and cycloceros) are all listed under Category II of the national Red Book and thus legally protected. In the 1990s, Turkmenistan issued a limited number of permits for Urial hunts in the Kopet Dagh Mountains at USD 14,900 per animal (Weinberg, Valdez et al. 1997). Urial occurs in the Kaplankyr, Kopet Dagh, Siunt-Khasardag, Badhgyz and Koytendag Strict Nature Reserves.

In Uzbekistan, Urial is protected due to its Red Book status. A small number of permits for trophy hunting is nevertheless issued and currently Urial hunts are offered on the internet. Urial (O. v. bochariensis) occur in the Surkhan Strict Nature Reserve and its buffer zone in the Kugitang Mountain Range. The creation of additional protected areas in the Babatag and Baysuntau has been proposed. Uzbekistan plans the establishment of a strict nature reserve in the southern Ustyurt, benefiting the subspecies O. v. arkal. Protected areas’ effectiveness in preventing poaching and at least controlling livestock grazing needs to be improved.