2019 California Bighorn Sheep Hunt - Tag Filled

[eskimo]

Great story ,great ram,and a great hunter and outdoorsman. You earned it. Good luck the rest of the season.

[greenhead_killer]

Congrats on your ram.. Can you educate me on how or why WDFW decides to allow taking a juvenile ram rather than a ewe on these hunts. I am not a sheep expert but the areas I have been in and sheep I have looked at it would seem like if we are going to cull sheep from our herds it would not be a perfect immature ram that could be the next 180 ram but would be broken older ram that none of the ram tag holders want to shoot.? I'm not pointing a finger at the hunter I am just confused at the logic of WDFW on this when we can't seem to get sheep numbers high enough to continue to raise tag numbers over the years in our state.

they gave the option of shooting an ewe or juvenile ram out of the canyon herd this year to reduce it to the point they can go in and do testing. Pneumonia is running through this herd and they wanted to gauge where the herd is standing. If they are infected or clean. I’ve also heard that the ewes that are infected have only been giving birth to male lambs. Over abundance maybe? I know a lot had to do with the reduction of the herd and who’s not going to try and shoot a ram if given the choice?

[snake]

Congrats on your ram.. Can you educate me on how or why WDFW decides to allow taking a juvenile ram rather than a ewe on these hunts. I am not a sheep expert but the areas I have been in and sheep I have looked at it would seem like if we are going to cull sheep from our herds it would not be a perfect immature ram that could be the next 180 ram but would be broken older ram that none of the ram tag holders want to shoot.? I'm not pointing a finger at the hunter I am just confused at the logic of WDFW on this when we can't seem to get sheep numbers high enough to continue to raise tag numbers over the years in our state.

Long story short, the biologist told me that a disease (I think it was pneumonia) is spreading and the older sheep have a certain amount of immunity to it.  The younger ones do not, if they cull the young/middle age animals they are hoping to stop the spread. That is why they gave so many juvenile and ewe tags this year in the canyon.  The biologist also didn't agree with the continued efforts to maintain a sheep population in areas that have domestic sheep, The wild ones will continue to die off.  This is putting the biologist words into Lehmans terms.  I discussed it at length with him when I got my ram pinned this year.