Quote:
Originally Posted by sheepguide
My point is that it was just a suggestion that I put forth in our previous thread and got more or less told I was an idiot because I thought there could be and older herd than what we have now.
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No, you were disagreed with because you wanted to put punitive restrictions on the hunting public to achieve an older herd. Less hunters and lower success rates to achive what?
You still aren't following the logic - they are shooting just legal sheep in the northern zones. They are shooting just legal sheep in the southern zones. What is the difference?
The study in Ram showed quite plainly that the Ram mortality was a fairly static quantity regardless of hunter mortality. If you wait till all sheep are 7 or 8 years old in the southern zones before you allow anyone to shoot them instead of shooting some of them at 4 or 5 years old as they turn legal you will have less rams available for hunting opportunity. They all will not make it to 7 or 8 years. By shooting some of the rams at 4 and 5 years of age you will not have less rams available at 7 or 8 because the numbers in the Ram study quite plainly show that hunter mortality at a sufficiently low rate is not additive.
At this point I remain unconvinced that we are overharvesting younger sheep because older sheep still exist. And they still exist in numbers that some are harvested every year.
The other thing that was VERY plain in the study was that quality of forage has a SIGNIFICANT effect on horn size, and restricted horn growth in the first 3 years is NEVER made up for in the life of the ram - to the extent that if quality of forage is sufficiently restricted a ram will never achieve 4/5 curl despite the quality of genetics and advantage of age.
If you want bigger rams on the mountain - be sure the young rams have enough to eat!!