Historically Low Alaska Sheep Harvest

[AlaskaMark]

Regarding pred-control, Bill, I believe there are current legal means to institute specific control efforts to benefit sheep, even though they are not on the IM list. A recent example is the limited grizzly bear control we did for muskox on the north slope to protect that population. Muskox aren't on the IM list.

And as far as RHAK doing a much better job standing up for the resource, as.ks.ak...I'd refer you this quote from Dr. Ira Gabrielson's comments to the Resource committee of the AK constitutional convention back in 1955/56: "Wildlife management, if you could deal only with the wild populations and their problems, would be relatively simple, but in my opinion most wildlife management consists of five per cent dealing with wildlife things and 95 per cent dealing with wild people, and most of the problems and most of the headaches in wildlife administration come from human attitudes and human problems not from the wildlife problems.."

His whole speech is well worth a read: https://www.akleg.gov/pdf/billfiles...Day 37 - December 14 1955 - Pages 847-865.pdf

Limits on hunters protect wildlife populations from overharvests, protect the resource. Unlimited Dall sheep hunting for all was never in the best interests of our sheep resource. The guides know it (except their solution is to limit guides) and we know it (our solution is to limit nonres who are required to hire a guide). Advocating to limit nonres sheep hunters where they are unlimited, in our view is all about the betterment of the resource, and sure we also want to protect and ensure future sheep hunting opportunities for Alaskans.

 

[as.ks.ak]

Regarding pred-control, Bill, I believe there are current legal means to institute specific control efforts to benefit sheep, even though they are not on the IM list. A recent example is the limited grizzly bear control we did for muskox on the north slope to protect that population. Muskox aren't on the IM list.

And as far as RHAK doing a much better job standing up for the resource, as.ks.ak...I'd refer you this quote from Dr. Ira Gabrielson's comments to the Resource committee of the AK constitutional convention back in 1955/56: "Wildlife management, if you could deal only with the wild populations and their problems, would be relatively simple, but in my opinion most wildlife management consists of five per cent dealing with wildlife things and 95 per cent dealing with wild people, and most of the problems and most of the headaches in wildlife administration come from human attitudes and human problems not from the wildlife problems.."

His whole speech is well worth a read: https://www.akleg.gov/pdf/billfiles...Day 37 - December 14 1955 - Pages 847-865.pdf

Limits on hunters protect wildlife populations from overharvests, protect the resource. Unlimited Dall sheep hunting for all was never in the best interests of our sheep resource. The guides know it (except their solution is to limit guides) and we know it (our solution is to limit nonres who are required to hire a guide). Advocating to limit nonres sheep hunters where they are unlimited, in our view is all about the betterment of the resource, and sure we also want to protect and ensure future sheep hunting opportunities for Alaskans.

Ironically enough, back to that whole only shining light on one part of the battlefield thing.

I would advise you to read that exact speech you referenced in its entirety again. Specifically this part…

“…The next phobia we had that was going to
solve all problems was making refuges. We made refuges by the thousands and covering millions of acres. Many of them were paper refuges with no
boundary markers or no enforcement and they did no good. Refuges again, we found had their value and they also had their limits. They were not
the answer to all the problems. They are chiefly valuable in many cases as a way of preserving suitable habitat for a game or fish or wildlife population and they have their place in the picture. They are not a cure-all. They do not solve anywhere near all the problems…”

Sounds like a sharp cookie, that Dr. Gabrielson.


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[AlaskaMark]

Glad you read through it, as.ks.ak. Yep, he was a sharp cookie. I don't get your comment on refuges in his speech though, as another battlefield to spread out the light on. Again, my point with the Gabrielson quote was really that there just isn't much we can do with wildlife mgmt beyond dealing with people (hunters).

 

[Cactus kid]

Limits on hunters protect wildlife populations from overharvests, protect the resource. Unlimited Dall sheep hunting for all was never in the best interests of our sheep resource. The guides know it (except their solution is to limit guides) and we know it (our solution is to limit nonres who are required to hire a guide). Advocating to limit nonres sheep hunters where they are unlimited, in our view is all about the betterment of the resource, and sure we also want to protect and ensure future sheep hunting opportunities for Alaskans.

This is where your argument doesn’t hold water.

You frequently cite the “unlimited non residents” as the main cause of the lack of sheep. But every one knows non resident pressure is bottlenecked by the amount of outfitters. So it’s not unlimited in the true sense of the word.

Resident pressure is actually unlimited. Any resident with the means and tenacity can chase these rams. Moreover, by your own admission, residents shoot the majority of sub-legal rams. It does not make sense to me that limiting nonresidents and not limiting residents will do anything to help sheep. Residents will just fly into the areas the formerly hunted by guides of and shoot a higher proportion of sub legal rams. I don’t see how this benefits the resource.

If limiting tags is the answer, then tags need to be limited to both res and non res.

 

[Cynoscion]

This is where your argument doesn’t hold water.

You frequently cite the “unlimited non residents” as the main cause of the lack of sheep. But every one knows non resident pressure is bottlenecked by the amount of outfitters. So it’s not unlimited in the true sense of the word.

Resident pressure is actually unlimited. Any resident with the means and tenacity can chase these rams. Moreover, by your own admission, residents shoot the majority of sub-legal rams. It does not make sense to me that limiting nonresidents and not limiting residents will do anything to help sheep. Residents will just fly into the areas the formerly hunted by guides of and shoot a higher proportion of sub legal rams. I don’t see how this benefits the resource.

If limiting tags is the answer, then tags need to be limited to both res and non res.

I agree but it really doesn’t sound like limiting tags is the answer bc sheep numbers are down everywhere, including areas with limited tags.
It really sounds to me like it’s time that the sheep biologists change harvest criteria if there are a lot of younger than ideal sheep are being killed.
As for lamb survivability, that’s a tough one. Where I live and work, our biggest limiting factor is always going to be our fawn crop (due to high fawn mortality in drought years). This manifests itself 6 or more years down the road in that you have a less than ideal number of mature bucks to harvest. The thing is, we as wildlife biologist/managers can predict it and see it coming so we adjust harvest parameters so that it doesn’t sting so bad in the year (or 2 or 3 lately) that it happens.
Comparing whitetail management to sheep management is apples to oranges but the principles remain the same.
If the harvest criteria isn’t working, change the criteria but you can’t shut it down for some period of time and then open it back up to the same criteria and expect a different result.

 

[WalterH]

If one of the problems facing sheep populations is the unintended consequence of the FC regulation, too many 5-6-7 yo rams dying, what about doing away with the FC requirements and limiting harvest strictly based on age?

Bump the age limit requirement up to 9 and/or double broomers? No more harvest based on full curl.

That would certainly lead to less harvest of rams overall and hopefully shift the harvest more towards the intended age class of animal.

Would this scenario lead to more or fewer sub-legal kills?

 

[cbeard64]

This is a scary situation and I don’t have the answers. Seems that when a situation is this dire a multi-faceted approach is called for with drastic action being needed.

I do know that limiting NRs alone while there are no limits on residents is always a political/preference move, not a conservation move.

I get why it’s done, but I prefer that all involved just call it what it is (residential preference) rather than try to cloak it as a conservation measure.

 

[Cynoscion]

If one of the problems facing sheep populations is the unintended consequence of the FC regulation, too many 5-6-7 yo rams dying, what about doing away with the FC requirements and limiting harvest strictly based on age?

Bump the age limit requirement up to 9 and/or double broomers? No more harvest based on full curl.

That would certainly lead to less harvest of rams overall and hopefully shift the harvest more towards the intended age class of animal.

Would this scenario lead to more or fewer sub-legal kills?

Exactly! It seems to me that this is the obvious thing to do.
And then, you could look at lamb survival rates in any given year and decide if it’s worth it to you to attempt to sheep hunt in that year. For example if 2012 lamb survival was horrible and 8 year old sheep harvest is the goal, then 2020 probably wasn’t going to be the best year for numbers of mature rams. Educated hunters could choose to sit out that year if killing a sheep was the most important thing to them.
There are plenty of folks though, myself included, that just want the opportunity to hunt sheep even if the odds of killing one are lower than ever. Keep the access open and change the criteria. It’s a win for all parties. The state still gets their revenue on licenses/tags, local businesses still get the income from NR’s in food, hotels, guides/outfitters, etc. but the younger age class of sheep stay on the mountain.

 

[TWHrunner]

Could you put in place a system that only allows you to buy a tag if you first fill a wolf tag, say the year before? May be far fetched and I’m sure there a lot of arguments why it wouldn’t work but it’s an idea.

 

[cubguy]

Lots of great ideas in this thread. Will be interesting to see how many rams are taken this fall.

 

[DBMR]

Great News on AK BOG closing 19C for non resident take for 5years. Should have been done years ago but the bulk of the guiding activity in this unit are non residents taking non resident hunters, this influential group were against this.
Aside from the obvious crowding issues this will address which is a win for all sheep hunters. Thiis will be a victory for the unsuspecting non residents (which there are plenty of) coming up to 19c for their once in a lifetime saved for sheep hunt only to be extremely disappointed and $20K lighter in the wallet.

 

[DBMR]

The next allocation issue on the horizon in AK that will address this will be the DNR proposal of State Land Outfitter Concessions. This will ultimately be the best thing for all recourses and non resident hunters alike in this primarily AK state land GMU area. Currently in 19c and many other state land areas an unlimited number of outfitters can sell an unlimited number of sheep (or any species) tags to clients. Currently it is one of the most greed based regulation the AK Big Game Commercial Services board still allows to continue. And largely they are not responsible for the way it is but they still hand out guide use areas to ANYONE qualified for it. MOST NON RESIDENTS have no clue this is how AK manages state land commercial services until it is too late; when they are sitting on an airstrip with 4 other guide outfits using the same strip to access.