Quote:
Originally Posted by Hagar
I feel as a hunter that it is better to harvest mature animals rather than young animals.Score means nothing to me.But if the young are hunted then whats left to mature?Sure there is still the thrill of the hunt whether it is young or old.But giving the difference in the populations of the different game animals the sheep is one of the smaller populations as compared to whitetails or elk.And if you don't think sheep are special then look at the rates for non-resident hunts for sheep.
As far as population goes,if you take the 1990 sheep report and the population goals for 2000 in that report and take it another 10 years you will see we are behind on the growth projections.How ever we are also way below the harvest goals of that report as well.
We are also one of the only places that I know of that has a general season for bighorn sheep.If we don't look towards the future we will lose this special hunt.As hunters we must look to the future of any game animal to preserve the hunt for the future.Not only our's but of all future hunters.
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You make some good points Hagar but I don't know how we can ever increase the age of the rams harvested without a significant reduction in opportunity. Aging bighorns on the hoof like they do with thinhorns just isn't practical and while a education program is, without regulations to back it up, I can't see guys not shooting legal 4/5 rams regardless of age. A limited-entry draw or full curl regulations would undoubtedly acheive those results but do we really want to limit opportunity that much when there really isn't a problem with the population numbers?
I totally agree that bighorns are special but are they any less special at 6.5 years old than they are at 9.5 years old? It takes the same amount of effort to get them. Non-resident prices are so high because of the limited opportunities to hunt bighorns in North America, not because of their age or B&C score. It all comes down to supply and demand.
I just can't help but think we are trying way too hard to fix a problem that doesn't exist. As I said for me personally, I'd love to see more restrictive regulations that put more older/higher scoring sheep on the mountains but I don't think that's best for all hunters. I say open some new opportunities with more restrictive regulations and leave what we have as is unless there is a concern over population numbers.