Santa Cruz sheep are an extremely rare breed of domestic sheep that once existed as a feral population on the Santa Cruz Island of the Channel Islands of California.

[1] Small and hardy, the sheep were all killed or removed from the island to prevent destruction of natural habitats.

In 1978, The Nature Conservancy gained control of the island; sheep numbers around this time were estimated to be over 20,000.

[4] Later, the Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service began to kill or remove all sheep remaining to prevent overgrazing of the island's vegetation.

[5] A small population of the sheep exists on the mainland, and were largely placed through adoption.