Big sheep changes

[Lr1000]

I'm about as scared of bears as I am the boogy monster... However I'm smart enough to avoid a confederation when I can see the strong possibility of one happening. Fyi we did not, not persue those Rams because of the grizz. However he did alter our stock which made us come down wind. With low food rations we had to leave that spot before getting back on those sheep. The other time a sow and cub came into camp fallowing the scent of a sheep we already killed. With 11 bears in the area we did the responsible thing and cut our hunt short to come back when things settled down.

How many sheep do you think servive do to closing mist and picklejar do to predator problems? Are you actually blind enough to not think we have a grizz, cats and wolf issue in some parts of our province and that it affects our sheep herd.

[crazy_davey]

Originally Posted by Lr1000

I'm about as scared of bears as I am the boogy monster... However I'm smart enough to avoid a confederation when I can see the strong possibility of one happening. Fyi we did not, not persue those Rams because of the grizz. However he did alter our stock which made us come down wind. With low food rations we had to leave that spot before getting back on those sheep. The other time a sow and cub came into camp fallowing the scent of a sheep we already killed. With 11 bears in the area we did the responsible thing and cut our hunt short to come back when things settled down.

How many sheep do you think servive do to closing mist and picklejar do to predator problems? Are you actually blind enough to not think we have a grizz, cats and wolf issue in some parts of our province and that it affects our sheep herd.

I understand about the predator issues in the province. Glad you avoided confederation... LOL.

But saying that because a bear was in his natural habitat stopped you from getting a ram and affects the harvest numbers is ridiculous. Predators out there are part of the hunting experience, that's the way it goes.

Should we just eliminate all predators so your backcountry hunting experience is more successful next time out?

Predators are an issue here. You and your brother not getting a ram because a bear was wandering around in the mountains isn't.

[mountainascent]

Originally Posted by crazy_davey

This has to be the stupidest post I have read on this issue...

So, in your opinion a grizzly bear between you and some legal rams is a problem? You had predators around your camp so you packed up and headed home with your tail between your legs? So we should eliminate all predators in the mountain zones so that they don't interfere in your chase and chance to harvest game?

Ya, lets eliminate all predators so a few ******* can harvest squeaker rams and add to the harvest rate numbers.

You are just another guy with lots of opinions and answers that has never killed a ram. Sheep hunting is hard for a reason, and yes, predators in their natural habitat is a part of what makes it hard. Deal with it or stay home.

Gezz crazy dave, I'm blushing. You seem to know so much about me, yet I know very little of you. I didn't realize I had a fan out there. The little I do know, is that you ban guys on cgn for not agreeing with you.......actually that says a lot about the kind of guy you are.

If you didn't understand my post, let me dumb it down for you. High predator numbers can effect the hunter harvest rate. High predator numbers can result in area closures which reduces hunter harvest rate. And for anyone who doesn't think the predator numbers are high, I question the fact that they even sheep hunt.

Ask anyone I hunt with, I sleep like a baby in the mountains because I'm not afraid of predators but you damn right I respect them. And those 3 rams were far from squeakers, 2 where full curl. Should I explain full curl to you?

[crazy_davey]

Originally Posted by mountainascent

Gezz crazy dave, I'm blushing. You seem to know so much about me, yet I know very little of you. I didn't realize I had a fan out there. The little I do know, is that you ban guys on cgn for not agreeing with you.......actually that says a lot about the kind of guy you are.

If you knew absolutely anything about how CGN is run or moderated you would know it is impossible to do what you say above. Mods have to vote before removing anybody. If I nominate someone to go I have absolutely no say in the outcome.

Nice try though....

[Pixel Shooter]

[whitetail Junkie]

Originally Posted by mountainascent

Gezz crazy dave, I'm blushing. You seem to know so much about me, yet I know very little of you. I didn't realize I had a fan out there. The little I do know, is that you ban guys on cgn for not agreeing with you.......actually that says a lot about the kind of guy you are.

My dad got banned from there because he hurt feelings by saying he does'nt agree with hunting bears over bait?

Lots of sensitive men on that forum I guess

[huntwat]

Wow, this has turned into the battle of the forums. Maybe invite sportsman to the fray also. Or any other takers!!

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by huntwat

Wow, this has turned into the battle of the forums. Maybe invite sportsman to the fray also. Or any other takers!!

Just smoke and mirrors.

Look over there, Outfitters!

No look over here, Twist Spin Flop, blah blah blah......


I suspect CrazyD went straight to personal attacks ( as this is his only skill) without watching this Sheep Study video presentation I linked earlier. If Davey had bothered to watch it he should appreciate that I am Not promoting that there may be only one particular cause for population swings with a sheep population, be it predation, habitat, weather or hunting pressure. Each population will face unique challenges on it's own timeline. Attempting to manage Bighorns province wide based on information from one particular area or by only a limited management strategy is ripe for getting it wrong, if maintaining hunter harvest opportunity within management goals is of any concern.

I suggest that we need to understand WHY a particular herd is facing issues in order to find the best solution that will both help the herd and maintain sustainable hunting harvest opportunity. ESRD had not been able to identify any particular reason for low ram %s in some areas. ESRD is still questioning whether the rams are simply not in the survey area when flights are made, the accuracy of the surveys, or if there is/has been a predator/habitat/health/harvest rate issue. The only issue that ESRD is publicly claiming is that of Hunting Induced Genetic Selection, and this is a claim that the majority of ESRD biologists do not agree with. Dependant upon what the correct reason is for low ram %s, changing the hunting regulations may not help the sheep at all. Is this the road we want to take?




Alaska Dall Sheep study - lessons being learned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p76nTePy5Ns

[Deer Hunter]

Why anyone would post an alternative opinion on sheep in this thread is beyond me. It appears to be handled by all the "experts". Good job!

[mountainascent]

http://alberta.ctvnews.ca/video?clip...ylistPageNum=1

There is also a very good article on page 18 of Aprils Alberta Outdoorsman.

[Acesneights]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p76nTePy5Ns&sns=em

Alberta should hire this guy.

[bdub]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

Just smoke and mirrors.

Look over there, Outfitters!

No look over here, Twist Spin Flop, blah blah blah......


I suspect CrazyD went straight to personal attacks ( as this is his only skill) without watching this Sheep Study video presentation I linked earlier. If Davey had bothered to watch it he should appreciate that I am Not promoting that there may be only one particular cause for population swings with a sheep population, be it predation, habitat, weather or hunting pressure. Each population will face unique challenges on it's own timeline. Attempting to manage Bighorns province wide based on information from one particular area or by only a limited management strategy is ripe for getting it wrong, if maintaining hunter harvest opportunity within management goals is of any concern.

I suggest that we need to understand WHY a particular herd is facing issues in order to find the best solution that will both help the herd and maintain sustainable hunting harvest opportunity. ESRD had not been able to identify any particular reason for low ram %s in some areas. ESRD is still questioning whether the rams are simply not in the survey area when flights are made, the accuracy of the surveys, or if there is/has been a predator/habitat/health/harvest rate issue. The only issue that ESRD is publicly claiming is that of Hunting Induced Genetic Selection, and this is a claim that the majority of ESRD biologists do not agree with. Dependant upon what the correct reason is for low ram %s, changing the hunting regulations may not help the sheep at all. Is this the road we want to take?




Alaska Dall Sheep study - lessons being learned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p76nTePy5Ns

Your statement that the Bios don't know where the sheep are, survey accuracy or whats happening to them etc is total BS. You such a wealth of misinformation and BS. The only people who believe it are those who, like you, desperately want sheep hunting to remain the same, irregardless of the health of the resource.

Within the goal of the management plan, exactly WB, within the goal of the management plan. What does the management plan call for? 5% trophy rams post season. Where is it at 5%? The parks and 400. Why is that? You can't figure that out? Come on.

[bdub]

Originally Posted by Lr1000

I'm about as scared of bears as I am the boogy monster... However I'm smart enough to avoid a confederation when I can see the strong possibility of one happening. Fyi we did not, not persue those Rams because of the grizz. However he did alter our stock which made us come down wind. With low food rations we had to leave that spot before getting back on those sheep. The other time a sow and cub came into camp fallowing the scent of a sheep we already killed. With 11 bears in the area we did the responsible thing and cut our hunt short to come back when things settled down.

How many sheep do you think servive do to closing mist and picklejar do to predator problems? Are you actually blind enough to not think we have a grizz, cats and wolf issue in some parts of our province and that it affects our sheep herd.

Predators have been interacting and affecting our wildlife and sheep since the beginning of time. The issue is some folks try and put the focus of the problem, which is the numbers of rams post season being under 5% post season, on predators. Yet we look across at the park herds and herds in 400 that have exactly the same predators etc and we see a healthy ram herd well above 5%. That is the issue i have, people are passing the blame rather that having a good look at what our own actions are doing.

[Lr1000]

Originally Posted by bdub

Predators have been interacting and affecting our wildlife and sheep since the beginning of time. The issue is some folks try and put the focus of the problem, which is the numbers of rams post season being under 5% post season, on predators. Yet we look across at the park herds and herds in 400 that have exactly the same predators etc and we see a healthy ram herd well above 5%. That is the issue i have, people are passing the blame rather that having a good look at what our own actions are doing.

Of course. However if we wanted our sheep on public land to be the same as in parks, we would not have a hunting season either. I am not against change, however do it for the right reasons and let the stakeholders actually have a say as to what change should happen. And I'm not going there with APOS and draw.

[fish_e_o]

Originally Posted by mountainascent

http://alberta.ctvnews.ca/video?clip...ylistPageNum=1

is it true that in a lower population horns will grow faster? is the food situation that bad for them?

and ultimately perhaps we could sustain a higher population and get better horn growth with better habitat management. ie. cutting out mountain grazing, reducing feral horses, controlled burns.

i feel like that is the better long term solution to the "problem"

[SLH]

Yes, if you exceed carrying capacity. At some level animals will survive on reduced ranges but at the expense of reproductive rates and body condition, which would show itself in winter body condition, pregnancy rates, lamb and yearling growth rates, horn growth in sheep and degraded range conditions amongst other things.

Did he show any supporting evidence for this idea of 20% ewe reductions? Do we see range degradation, are we seeing lower pregnancy rates, body condition ect. it definitely is a real thing and Wishart did a long term study of this on Ram Mt., which is one of the reasons Coltman et al. got so much heat back in 2003 when they suggested that the declines they saw in horn growth at Ram Mt were due to hunters when at the same time of that conclusion the sheep population on Ram Mt. was somewhere around double.

With that would it not stand to reason that the provincial herd would also have to nearly double before we would see those types of effects?

Simply reducing the ewe herd by 20% will have no effect on the remaining herd if carrying capacity limits are not being exceeded. If range improvements are done it would allow herd expansion where carrying capacity is not limiting and would improve herd health (including horn growth) if carrying capacity is being exceeded. In a great deal of situations winter range is the limiting factor for carrying capacity.

[walleyenwhitetails]

Originally Posted by fish_e_o

is it true that in a lower population horns will grow faster? is the food situation that bad for them?

and ultimately perhaps we could sustain a higher population and get better horn growth with better habitat management. ie. cutting out mountain grazing, reducing feral horses, controlled burns.

i feel like that is the better long term solution to the "problem"

Yes I agree, if the problem is that the population is above carrying capacity then the first step should be looking at options to improve the habitat to attempt to increase the carrying capacity.

Then if it is determined that there actually are too many sheep to support additional ewe tags could be issued.

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by SLH

Yes, if you exceed carrying capacity. At some level animals will survive on reduced ranges but at the expense of reproductive rates and body condition, which would show itself in winter body condition, pregnancy rates, lamb and yearling growth rates, horn growth in sheep and degraded range conditions amongst other things.

Did he show any supporting evidence for this idea of 20% ewe reductions? Do we see range degradation, are we seeing lower pregnancy rates, body condition ect. it definitely is a real thing and Wishart did a long term study of this on Ram Mt., which is one of the reasons Coltman et al. got so much heat back in 2003 when they suggested that the declines they saw in horn growth at Ram Mt were due to hunters when at the same time of that conclusion the sheep population on Ram Mt. was somewhere around double.

With that would it not stand to reason that the provincial herd would also have to nearly double before we would see those types of effects?

Simply reducing the ewe herd by 20% will have no effect on the remaining herd if carrying capacity limits are not being exceeded. If range improvements are done it would allow herd expansion where carrying capacity is not limiting and would improve herd health (including horn growth) if carrying capacity is being exceeded. In a great deal of situations winter range is the limiting factor for carrying capacity.

The herd may have already doubled. Population estimates from the 70's was around 3500. We are now in the 6500+ range. And then factor in habitat loss....

There is a significant challenge in conclusively determining carrying capacity at the meta-popluation level. Besides the huge volume of labour and time that would be required is the huge financial outlay required that is simply not available. We will have to work from other evidence. Fortunately there are other potential signs other than a population collapse that could signal that the herds are at carrying capacity. One of these being a flatlining of population growth, which we have seen since the mid-eighties.

Ewe harvest at the rate of 20% certainly can positively effect a herd at or below carrying capacity. This 20% harvest rate is generally not sufficient to induce a population reduction, the effects of this harvest rate is more likely to maintain a population while reducing the average age of the ewes. Research shows that younger ewes produce more and bigger/faster growing lambs. By increasing the ewe harvest we can impart a more vigorous herd age structure without reducing the population.


The current Sheep Management plan suggests a harvest of 500 ewes every year from a herd of 6900 sheep. Well, we have the 6900 sheep but the ewe harvest has been averaging about 50 ewes per year since 2004 , 10% of the management goal. Before that there were about 100 ewes taken each year from 1990-2002. From '82-'88 we killed over 400 ewes every year from a population a bit less than we have today.

Is it a coincidence that the period of high ewe harvest aligns itself with the years of high ram harvest?

I wonder where we would be today if the current Sheep Management Plan had been followed....

[SLH]

First if you are at carrying capacity yes reductions will have the affects you are stating I didn't make that clear at the end of my post, but below carrying capacity I’d suggest that any reductions of the herd would have limited effects on the production and growth of the herd. In this condition of recovery there would be limited benefit in reducing the herd size unless you could specifically remove unproductive individuals. One of the downsides to ewe harvests in general is most hunters are unwilling to harvest that older ewe that has a lamb and would rather target a young yearling ewe. Plus the benefits really show up when you can get yearling ewes to breed which comes from the benefit of reduced pressure on resources by limiting intraspecific competition. If that condition is already met then what benefit would there be too more reductions. I suppose if you are trying to maintain a population at a much reduced level then it would be your only option.

So once you have these conditions met then the benefits are transferred to the lambs by way of higher growth rates less trouble making it through the winter ect. By maximizing growth you can then maximize horn growth as well but again this will not be that useful on a recovering herd as the conditions are already met by the reduced intraspecific competition. That’s why I’m interested in seeing how the ewes will be managed in 400 as they near the population that was lost prior to the die off. It is also why I asked if he suggested any other evidence for this conclusion.

I find it funny how without any real data (as you stated it’s hard to get and not available) you will work off of “other evidence” but you seem to completely dismiss any corroborating evidence with regard to hunter selection issues, suggesting a conspiracy instead. Any way as I mentioned there is a ton of “other evidence” that would also suggest carrying capacity issues like body condition, decreased pregnancy rates, decreased horn growth, range condition. Populations crashes happen when you exceed carrying capacity. Just a point of issue Stelfox seems to disagree with your numbers a bit as it looks like 4000–5400 would be the numbers for the 70’s we could use the numbers of the 50’s when there were 2000 if you like. The reality is we don’t know what carrying capacity is on any given year so have we seen any of the other symptoms over time, the easiest being degraded range conditions? Any one condition probably doesn't make the case either way.

Next your presumption of how good it was from 82-88 when the ewe harvest was at its height is not really evidenced by the ram harvest of those years as you would like us to believe. The ram harvest went up from 500 in ‘82 to 649 in ‘84 then continuously went down to 271 in 89. Not exactly the ringing endorsement for ewe harvests you would have us believe (just a note, I believe in ewe harvests). As for the state of the ewe harvest in the recent past, what where they supposed to do with some of those zones once they started seeing what they have reported?

[decker]

Originally Posted by fish_e_o

is it true that in a lower population horns will grow faster? is the food situation that bad for them?

and ultimately perhaps we could sustain a higher population and get better horn growth with better habitat management. ie. cutting out mountain grazing, reducing feral horses, controlled burns.

i feel like that is the better long term solution to the "problem"

I agree this would be a better solution in the long term, more controlled burns and eliminate the random sledding areas in the back country which are on prime wintering grounds for herds of sheep.

[walking buffalo]

SLH,

It is refreshing to see you discussing and debating again as opposed to the derogatory reflections. Thanks.

Wishart, Jorgenson, Coltman, Geist and others have done the research on herd density and shown the positive attributes to maintaining a sheep population below carrying capacity. As previously experienced we could increase the ewe harvest 1000% and still maintain current population levels. Why isn't ESRD following this management goal as directed in the Sheep Plan?

If we are not at carrying capacity in general, then why isn't the herd experiencing expected population growth? It definitely is not due to over harvesting ewes. Is it predation? If it is not predation or hunting or herd density then what the hell is causing the population to be stagnant? Is it Hunting induced genetic selection?

You might want to review the Ram harvest numbers.

[bdub]

Aerial survey and harvest data is now out on the ESRD website folks.

[decker]

Everyone seems to be absorbing the overwhelming data.

[trashheap]

I've been going over the harvest data for the last couple of hours and yah it is a lot to look through alright. I would like to say it is refreshing that the government has actually released data that us as tax payers and hunters have paid for. I know one of the big issues that everyone keeps bringing up is age of animals harvested. Just skipping to 2014 i see quite a few 2-4 year old rams on the harvest data. These rams were either found dead or native kills. Both of which us as hunters have no control over. In the last column it says weather they are legal harvest, road kills, predation, found dead ect. Harvest # 9584 and 9585 just say legal harvest which as far as I can tell means hunted with a tag? And they are 2 year old rams? Then I looked in column N and it is kill type. 1=Bow, 2= Rifle ,3=Native, 4=other. It shows a 3? So long story short are these numbers put into hunting harvest and the fact that hunters are taking younger rams? A few 2 year old animal would drop our age average considerably.

[Ceilidh69]

Any updates - no info on SRD website. Thread has been dead for a while.

Thanks

[diamonddave]

That was a good thing, way to go Ceilid

[Hydro1]

Originally Posted by diamonddave

That was a good thing, way to go Ceilid

Haha, yeah. Here we go again?

[pottymouth]

New government, and lots of number crunching going on!

[Smoke]

Until our left leaning beaurcracy get us on draw they will not be happy. Continuing to paint a rosy picture of healthy ewe numbers is misleading and only helps to make mature ram percentage less. The areas I am most familiar with from the Panther north to the Bighorn certainly have fewer ewes today than ten years ago. Bottom line is cougar number have at least quadrupled in the past decade in sheep country and if this not addressed we can stop hunting all together and still have less next year.

[bdub]

http://www.wsfab.org/pdfs/boyce.pdf

Seems Mr. Boyce would like to do a five year experiment on our sheep herds. Another wasted 5 years while things continue to go slowly downhill. Can smell the outfitter influence all over this one.