We are at (or exceeding) the population objectives in each of our California bighorn herds here in Washington. That means we currently have no place to put surplus animals, and it is really expensive to transplant them if we do. Like you guys, I would love to have more bighorns in the state but we are limited by available suitable sheep habitat. Not long ago an assessment was done looking for more bighorn habitat, but found that we are either out of it, or nearly out of it.
Bighorns require escape terrain, lambing areas, open space, water, food, etc… so habitat improvements are common (prescribed burns, noxious weed spraying, guzzlers, etc…) Then especially with Cali’s, which are lower elevation dwellers putting them in closer proximity to humans, we have a number of other concerns. The biggest is overlap with domestic sheep/goats and disease transmission, vehicle collisions, private land access issues etc…
If we let the population exceed the management plan we greatly increase the risk of the concerns I stated above, and jeopardize the future of the entire herd. So we have few options. One solution has been to capture many bighorns and give them to the Tribes (which we have been doing). Another option was/is to provide hunting opportunity through limited special permits (like we do with other species).
I agree that 3 ewes over two herds harvested is not having an impact. It is just some additional hunting opportunity, and without question… a bit of a revenue gimmick by the WDFW selling special permit applications.
Oh, and I have no problem hunting the females of species if the population allows it.
