I hear ya and I'd be the first one to jump on board with what ever mechanism makes sense to insure a healthy herd. The issue is though if in fact this is a real problem or if it is a case that a well placed special interest got the ear of someone that had the ability to affect change on the management of the sheep hunt.
Personally I feel that the latter is the case. In fact going through the survey numbers supplied by ACA for the north zones it looks like numbers are fairly stable. Possibly age structure is an issue but that may very well be explained by any number of issues. If like what has been suggested that to many short sheep are being shot and not enough convictions are being able to stick then the problem is not the management of the hunt but rather the inability to make a simple law like shooting a short sheep stick and but the fear of shooting such an animal as a deterrent.
If this has alterior motives than it is just plane wrong and everyone invovled should be ashamed at how they are doing business.
If there is truly a problem, which could be the case then we have to look at solutions to that.
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