Alaska Sheep, 19C Working Group

[WalterH]

Do you have a study or link for the 70% mortality number?

I went in search of source data for that recollection and came up with the following:






So based on these two studies (Deevey and Murie), mortality rates from ages 8-9 were 10% and 23% respectively, and then 16% and 43% from ages 9-10?

Not sure where I pulled that 70% number from. I think the it was likely the graph below that showed approximately 70% of rams born are dead by age 9. Sorry for the fake news on that anyhow.

 

[FAAFO]

In years past when there were more rams on the mountain, sub-legal harvest was less of a concern. These days, every ram matters and 10-15 percent of the overall number of dead rams being sub-legal is not cool. Typically about 1/3 of the sub legals are taken by guided clients.

You say every ram matters but that goes against the full curl management plan which you said you agreed with in an earlier post?

The sublegal % hasn’t increased with less rams on the mountain. If you have an issue with sublegal harvest you have an issue with full curl management.

More mature rams post hunt couldn’t hurt and maybe is needed more than ever with such low sheep populations.

 

[FAAFO]

I would like to see access restrictions first before we have any other type of restriction. Make it more difficult to kill rams.

After access restrictions I believe an adjustment of the seasons would be in order.

Easier adjustments to give the placebo effect that the SOA is doing anything is likely the best route to take to ensure fullcurlfriday can still happen.

 

[WalterH]

You say every ram matters but that goes against the full curl management plan which you said you agreed with in an earlier post?

The sublegal % hasn’t increased with less rams on the mountain. If you have an issue with sublegal harvest you have an issue with full curl management.

More mature rams post hunt couldn’t hurt and maybe is needed more than ever with such low sheep populations.

I should have said every young ram matters.

I don’t quite follow your reasoning. There is a big difference between 4-6 year old rams dying and 8+ year old rams dying.

There are problems with full curl management in my mind, mainly that it doesn’t prevent 6-7 year old rams from dying in fairly significant numbers.

 

[WalterH]

I would like to see access restrictions first before we have any other type of restriction. Make it more difficult to kill rams.

After access restrictions I believe an adjustment of the seasons would be in order.

Easier adjustments to give the placebo effect that the SOA is doing anything is likely the best route to take to ensure fullcurlfriday can still happen.

Agreed 100% on access restrictions before loss of hunting opportunities.

 

[FAAFO]

I should have said every young ram matters.

I don’t quite follow your reasoning. There is a big difference between 4-6 year old rams dying and 8+ year old rams dying.

There are problems with full curl management in my mind, mainly that it doesn’t prevent 6-7 year old rams from dying in fairly significant numbers.

I believe you were correct when you said every ram matters. I would question anyone saying or believing there are “surplus” rams in a population. How could a study prove as such? One could argue because all the ewes are being breed? But that’s just a few weeks out of the year. Do the rams have no other value rest of the year?

 

[FAAFO]

Agreed 100% on access restrictions before loss of hunting opportunities.

In full honestly and transparency access restrictions are a loss of hunting opportunities for many. I don’t care though. Just like I don’t care to hear the story of a sheep hunt where a guy lands and walks a little ways and kills a ram.

 

[WalterH]

I believe you were correct when you said every ram matters. I would question anyone saying or believing there are “surplus” rams in a population. How could a study prove as such? One could argue because all the ewes are being breed? But that’s just a few weeks out of the year. Do the rams have no other value rest of the year?

I don’t disagree by any means. I’ve been representing what the managers have said and continue to say, not necessarily my personal opinions. Problem is we don’t really have any hard data or science to point to re: the value of old rams. Do we?

I think old rams do matter to the population in more ways than one. Senior leadership for the youngsters, spreading the stress of the rut around on more animals, good genetics, etc.

Sub-legal harvest stings in two ways, the population loses an animal that has a few quality years ahead to contribute to the herd, and hunters lose a chance at that animal when it is legal/mature.

I heard through the rumor mill that one of the sub-legals taken this year was by a dude that has killed 4 sub-legal sheep in the last handful of years. Stiffer penalties are long overdue.

Agreed on access restrictions equating to lost opportunities for some. That having been said, I’d greatly prefer to have to change my ways and means rather than not be able to hunt at all. Lesser of 2 evils IMO.

 

[IBen]

10 day season for non-res,
30 day season for residents.
Thats basically one sheep hunt per guide.
Also full curl managemnt needs to go. Rams should be 8+ years old and full curl. Lots of rams especially in areas within19c hit full curl at 6 and 7.

 

[207-12A]

10 day season for non-res,
30 day season for residents.
Thats basically one sheep hunt per guide.
Also full curl managemnt needs to go. Rams should be 8+ years old and full curl. Lots of rams especially in areas within19c hit full curl at 6 and 7.

This is a proposal I can get behind, and if you’re clever with a series of 10 day windows for NR draw tags, guides can get more than one 10 day hunt in different GMUs to maintain their livelihood. I’m not jumping off of the FCM model, but the population decreases across the state are an indicator that more needs to change. It doesn’t condemn FCM as ineffective, but times and conditions have certainly changed since its adoption.

 

[Bambistew]

I went in search of source data for that recollection and came up with the following:

View attachment 780437

View attachment 780438


So based on these two studies (Deevey and Murie), mortality rates from ages 8-9 were 10% and 23% respectively, and then 16% and 43% from ages 9-10?

Not sure where I pulled that 70% number from. I think the it was likely the graph below that showed approximately 70% of rams born are dead by age 9. Sorry for the fake news on that anyhow.


View attachment 780439

Thank you for these. Do you have links for full references?

I have a age regression model built using harvest data, that projects age of harvest and success in the future based on observed winter mortality and population data. Its pretty sad to predict how bad the sheep population will be in in a few more years. I'm surprised the BOG hasn't asked ADFG to provide future population modeling, they could easily do it.

You think its tough now, wait a few more years when we work through the winter we had a couple years ago. We lost that years lambs, yearlings, ewes aborted, and many ewes died, Many areas have less than half the sheep they did going into that winter, and 20-50% than they did prior to 2011 winter. The number of young rams in the population is far less than it was when the population nose dived 4 years ago. It takes decades to build populations back after a big die off like that, the worst part was another big die off 9-10 years later.

The first table shows nearly 57.1% of their cohort and older are still alive at 8-9, and 25.2% are still alive at 10.

That last graph says it all. That's the population dynamic we have in Alaska right now. Virtually no old rams in many areas, and a big trough at year 3-5. The number of rams over 9yo killed this year will be 15-20% tops, less than half of what it should be. Last year was similar.

 

[FAAFO]

Thank you for these. Do you have links for full references?

I have a age regression model built using harvest data, that projects age of harvest and success in the future based on observed winter mortality and population data. Its pretty sad to predict how bad the sheep population will be in in a few more years. I'm surprised the BOG hasn't asked ADFG to provide future population modeling, they could easily do it.

You think its tough now, wait a few more years when we work through the winter we had a couple years ago. We lost that years lambs, yearlings, ewes aborted, and many ewes died, Many areas have less than half the sheep they did going into that winter, and 20-50% than they did prior to 2011 winter. The number of young rams in the population is far less than it was when the population nose dived 4 years ago. It takes decades to build populations back after a big die off like that, the worst part was another big die off 9-10 years later.

The first table shows nearly 57.1% of their cohort and older are still alive at 8-9, and 25.2% are still alive at 10.

That last graph says it all. That's the population dynamic we have in Alaska right now. Virtually no old rams in many areas, and a big trough at year 3-5. The number of rams over 9yo killed this year will be 15-20% tops, less than half of what it should be. Last year was similar.

What do you think can or should be done?

 

[Nick Muche]

From my research and relationships with sheep biologists in ADF&G, this started in the mid 70s with Wayne Heimer and a study on Kenai MTNs and Alaska Range populations.

So you’re book smart but not street smart?

 

[207-12A]

So you’re book smart but not street smart?

I try my best not to claim either, but looking forward to hearing some counter arguments that will highlight my lack of street smarts.

 

[ColeyG]

Thank you for these. Do you have links for full references?

I have a age regression model built using harvest data, that projects age of harvest and success in the future based on observed winter mortality and population data. Its pretty sad to predict how bad the sheep population will be in in a few more years. I'm surprised the BOG hasn't asked ADFG to provide future population modeling, they could easily do it.

You think its tough now, wait a few more years when we work through the winter we had a couple years ago. We lost that years lambs, yearlings, ewes aborted, and many ewes died, Many areas have less than half the sheep they did going into that winter, and 20-50% than they did prior to 2011 winter. The number of young rams in the population is far less than it was when the population nose dived 4 years ago. It takes decades to build populations back after a big die off like that, the worst part was another big die off 9-10 years later.

The first table shows nearly 57.1% of their cohort and older are still alive at 8-9, and 25.2% are still alive at 10.

That last graph says it all. That's the population dynamic we have in Alaska right now. Virtually no old rams in many areas, and a big trough at year 3-5. The number of rams over 9yo killed this year will be 15-20% tops, less than half of what it should be. Last year was similar.

Yikes.

That is a pretty grim outlook. I was hoping we were at the bottom and would soon start working our way back up.

Is your model something you can share?

I would imagine future population modeling would be darn near impossible to do accurately given the wild range of winter weather mass mortality events?

 

[WalterH]

Thank you for these. Do you have links for full references?

I have a age regression model built using harvest data, that projects age of harvest and success in the future based on observed winter mortality and population data. Its pretty sad to predict how bad the sheep population will be in in a few more years. I'm surprised the BOG hasn't asked ADFG to provide future population modeling, they could easily do it.

You think its tough now, wait a few more years when we work through the winter we had a couple years ago. We lost that years lambs, yearlings, ewes aborted, and many ewes died, Many areas have less than half the sheep they did going into that winter, and 20-50% than they did prior to 2011 winter. The number of young rams in the population is far less than it was when the population nose dived 4 years ago. It takes decades to build populations back after a big die off like that, the worst part was another big die off 9-10 years later.

The first table shows nearly 57.1% of their cohort and older are still alive at 8-9, and 25.2% are still alive at 10.

That last graph says it all. That's the population dynamic we have in Alaska right now. Virtually no old rams in many areas, and a big trough at year 3-5. The number of rams over 9yo killed this year will be 15-20% tops, less than half of what it should be. Last year was similar.

The info I found largely cited the following sources and/or reproduced their own survivor ship tables and graphs based data from these studies.

• Deevey (1947)
• Taber and Dasmann (1957)
• Buechner (1960)
• Caughley (1966)
• Bradley and Baker (1967)
• Murie (1944)

The two tables above were Murie and Deevey I believe.

I was not able to track down any of the papers or publications in their entirety, just excepts and cites.

 

[Bambistew]

What do you think can or should be done?

Maybe we should ask the W$F? They're good at selling hunts and raising money, just not good at doing much else for Alaska sheep. Still waiting to hear of 3 successful projects they've performed in Alaska with any sort of measurable outcome. Hell, I'd take just one example. 7 years and nothing to show for it except for back slaps and atta boys for selling governors tags. The sub-legal ram shot on the governors tag this year was a nice touch.

Honestly, I don't think there is really much that can be done. Everything is just a band aid, or pushes harvest to another user group. Weather is 100% the controlling factor for sheep, virtually everywhere in Alaska. All climate models predict that Alaska will be getting warmer and wetter, none of which will be beneficial to our sheep. I work on multi $B projects and everyone of them includes climate modeling to inform future risk. Some areas there will be less water, others more water. There are 40+ different climate models and virtually all of them predict similar outcomes at varying magnitude and time.

The limited harvest areas including the parks have seen similar declines. While they may have more older rams, the population/age dynamic is similar, gaps in age classes, etc. The winter kill is the controlling factor, period. All other factors are marginal.

Intensive predator management in some areas could help some, but as far as I understand they can't or won't implement IPM for sheep as they are not a subsistence animal. Mortality in some areas is highly skewed to weather/avalanche death while its predator take in others, so its not a one fits all.

Limiting hunting just limits who gets to kill what. Sill only so many "surplus" to harvest.

Closing it wont' do anything either. Not like saving a couple rams is going to magically increase sheep populations.

Say you have 10,000 sheep, and lose 50% them in the winter. On average with favorable conditions you're lucky to increase populations by 5% a year with normal mortality. That's 15 years to get back to your original population prior to the die off. Now say you lose another 50% 8-9 years into the rebuilding cycle... now you're looking at anther 20 years to rebuild to the original 10,000. The sheep population isn't coming back before I'm too old to hunt them.

I'm not going to stop hunting sheep unless forced to. Limiting my take to some silly 1:4 or something harvest per year isn't going to do anything except let someone else shoot the same sheep. The writing is on the wall.

Yikes.

That is a pretty grim outlook. I was hoping we were at the bottom and would soon start working our way back up.

Is your model something you can share?

I would imagine future population modeling would be darn near impossible to do accurately given the wild range of winter weather mass mortality events?

I won't share my model, sorry.

Predictions are not hard, and there are many methods to simulate outcomes given parameters with limits. We do simulations all the time with far more complex data sets and parameters. You don't get exact numbers, but you get a range high/low of probable outcome. Predicting mortality is tough, but we know the high and low boundaries and the probability of them occurring, which is all you really need.

 

[WalterH]

Spot on.