I was truthfully unaware that the "Stick Method" was even an option in Alaska.
I guess there was a bio up in Fairbanks or maybe Delta that was using it in years past?
The parallel tip/base method will be pretty difficult to do as described. I played around with the method last night on a skull. Remember the point on a circle tangent to a line is infinitely small...The angle of the straight edge can be manipulated significantly with a VERY minor change in placement on the horn tip. I think a better way would be to take a picture and draw lines on the picture to see if they're parallel. You can also do this method from the front as well.
The stick method is pretty straight forward, but again... equal amount of horn above and below the plane? Eyeball it or what? That won't stand up in court... I want to know how they will measure this distance. Calipers maybe? We're talking a corkscrew, using the eyeball, the perception at various distances is not the same as the actual measurement. Squeakers will be in trouble.
The "lamb tip" definition will cause more controversy than we currently have... This will be quite subjective considering the level of wear, length of growth, being "concave" or not. The concave portion can extend into the second year of growth. I can see the red tags getting printed now as troopers use the concave portion of the horn to define the lamb tip. My wife has a ram that is concaved almost to year 3.
Personally I would have rather them use the decreasing segment length to define the preceding length to define broomed. For instance, if the length between y2 and y3 is say 8", then the length between y1 and y2 should be at least 8". If its less then you have a broomed ram. Y2 and Y3 rings are usually pretty easy to see. Or maybe something more simple like... require broomed rams to be 8 years of age?
I'm not sure they're really solved any of the legal/enforcement issues on squeaker rams. While these methods are somewhat definitive, they are just as subjective as the current FC regulation. There will be instances where a judgment call will still have to be made because the "test" can't be repeated exactly the same over and over. Good luck in court, AST will continue to give warnings on squeaker rams because they won't be able to defend these methods any more than they could before.
I'm glad there is more information, but I don't think enforcement will be any easier. To play devils advocate here... One thing it has done is allowed rams that previously were not legal under full curl definition to "become" legal (more 6-8yo rams). We'll see more people taking a risk at shooting a squeaker thinking it will pass one of the various tests. IMO I think we may see fewer red tags, and more young rams being killed, further driving down the average age of rams harvested.
