We have to be careful in what we wish for here. Even as a bunch of sheep hunters we cannot agree on what to do as far as management goes. I agree a lot of problems are related to human encroachment. The increase of provincial parks has a direct impact on success numbers. As there is no hunting in provincial parks.
With that we have a large population of people who want to hunt sheep in a decreasing area where we are allowed to hunt.
So what do we do?
Have no changes and allow over the counter tags? How many people just buy sheep tags just in case they may see a ram while hunting deer or elk? This throws stats out the window for draw expectations.
Put it on draw and have 4/5 or full curl? People *itch that they will never be drawn blah blah blah.
Someone mentioned a five year wait between kills maybe they are right? Should we also say three ram lifetime limit?
We do need some serious data comparing zones that were open 20-30 years ago and zones that are still open today. Also numbers in relationship to sheep hunters to harvest in those same huntable areas.
I can remember hunting years ago around kanaskis lakes now Peter Laugheed, Spray lakes now Spray lakes provincial park.
This has definitely changed success rates as now we can't hunt these areas. It is not like we have less habitat, but we definitely have less huntable habitat.
We need less provincial parks and more wild land parks so we can still hunt but puts more restrictions on human encroachment (ski hills...)
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