Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep.

Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.

Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production.^{[citation needed]}

Steven Rinella is an American writer, television personality, hunter, and outdoorsman. He is the author of the The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine and American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles about hunting, fishing, food, and travel. In 2011, he hosted the eight-part Travel Channel series, The Wild Within.

Rinella was born in Twin Lake, Michigan on February 13, 1974. He was raised along with his two older brothers, Matthew and Daniel Rinella. He began hunting and fishing at a very young age, and was commercially trapping muskrats by the age of ten. Rinella graduated from Reeths Puffer High School in 1992. He finished his college degree at Grand Valley State University in December, 1996, after attending classes at Muskegon Community College and Lake Superior State University. Steven received a Masters of Fine Arts in 2000 from The University of Montana-Missoula.

The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine was published in 2006 by Miramax Books. After stumbling upon Auguste Escoffier’s culinary milestone Le Guide Culinaire, Rinella embarked on a prolific quest to procure all the ingredients necessary to recreate an elaborate forty-five course meal using Escoffier’s recipes exclusively. Rinella accounts his pursuit of these ingredients as he traverses the country in a year long culinary and hunter-gatherer escapade. The documented adventures are visceral experiences that ultimately bring to light the modern disconnect between ourselves and what we eat. "Outdoorsman and travel writer Steven Rinella brings bohemian flair and flashes of poetic sensibility to his picaresque tale of a man, a cookbook and the culinary open road."

The Sheep is a character, created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll. It appeared in Dodgson's book, Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The Sheep is first mentioned in the fifth chapter of Through the Looking-Glass, "Wool and Water". The White Queen is talking to Alice, when she suddenly starts "baa-ing" and then seems to 'wrap herself in wool'. Alice figures out she is in a shop, and that The White Queen has turned into a sheep. The Sheep sits in her chair knitting as Alice looks around the shop. She gives Alice a pair of her knitting needles, and asks her if she can row. As Alice begins to answer, she realizes that they are in a little boat, and that the needles have turned into oars. As they glide along the water, the Sheep repeatedly shouts out "Feather," and tells Alice that they will be catching crabs. Alice's attention is then put onto some scented rushes growing in the water. She tries picking them, but they are only 'dream rushes' and melt away. She then quickly catches a crab, which she actually didn't see, and they are all suddenly in the shop again. Alice buys an egg from the Sheep (that ends up turning into Humpty Dumpty) and the two part ways.