Shooting a nanny

[shanevg]

No offense Orion, but what are you basing that on? I cannot speak for what works in the Lower 48 for goat management, but that is the exact opposite strategy to what is encouraged here in Alaska.

Here is a link to a good article on managing Mt Goats in Alaska:

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=522

Too quote a few key lines:

“Research shows that when a population is in decline, if you continue to harvest nannies, and especially older nannies, you can lose the whole population,” Mooney said. “Since the average age of breeding females is four, and some females don’t breed until they are five or even six, you lose a lot of your recruitment.”

“People were taking older nannies, generally meaning you don’t have the young ones out there. They’re taking the breeding crop.”


The ideal management tool would be to restrict hunters to taking only billy goats. One billy can impregnate many nannies, and protecting nannies means more kids. But the difficulty in distinguishing nannies from billies makes that impractical.


From a goat biologist in Alberta:

Older nannies are critical to the herd’s growth as well. “About 80 percent of the 9 to 11 year-old-females have a kid each year,” he said, “These are the primary contributors to the population. Longevity is key to reproductive success.” First time mothers – at four or five years old – tend to be somewhat less successful. The older nannies tend to have more kids that live past one year of age. The younger nannies also tend to skip a year and not get pregnant, a reproductive pause. Alaska researchers observed similar tendencies.

I was just going to say the same thing. Thanks for sharing even more specific data!

 

[orionthehunter1]

We aren't talking about a declining herd. The OP stated a healthy herd which is what I hunted so yes I would rather see people shoot older age class mature nannies than a 7" two year old billy just so they can say they shot a billy.

 

[SJ-AK]

We aren't talking about a declining herd. .

Neither am I. The fact is if you remove enough mature nannies from a heard, that healthy herd now has a significant chance to become a declining herd.

I would rather see people shoot older age class mature nannies than a 7" two year old billy just so they can say they shot a billy.

Ironically I find many hunters knowingly shoot a nannie just to say they shot a goat. I do not know one experienced goat hunter that shoots nannies. If you happen to live in a state where goat hunting is a once in a lifetime opportunity or you are forced to pay $15,000 for a guided hunt, I completely understand the want to take any goat home. However removing a two year old billy from the herd is better management than removing an 8 year old nannie unless you want herd numbers down. It's biology, not conjecture.

 

[Floorguy]

Ironically I find many hunters knowingly shoot a nannie just to say they shot a goat. I do not know one experienced goat hunter that shoots nannies.

Just out of curiosity, how many experienced goat hunters do you know that have shot nannies say before they became "experienced"?

 

[60x]

Ironically I find many hunters knowingly shoot a nannie just to say they shot a goat. I do not know one experienced goat hunter that shoots nannies. .

SJ with all due respect I disagree with you completely.. I took a nanny and as a hunting guide in Alaska for the better part of 15 years I have had quite a bit of mountain expeerience.. I also know quite a few other mountain guides that would also and have taken nannys responsibly.I hold the Value of every animal I take as a trophy.. I honestly do understand the biological impacts which is why I have been stressing healthy herd.. I think people hunt for all types of reasons and some simply view every animal as a trophy.. I do absolutely appreciate all the good conversation and of course welcome all opinions..

 

[60x]

I hunted goats in BC in 2010. It was a do it your self hunt and was in an area with good goat numbers. We saw alot of goats but all the billies we saw were young and 8" or smaller. We saw a Nanny early that was easy to tell was very mature and lookied to have lots of age rings. She was without a kid and was living alone in some rugged cliffs. Late in the hunt I decided to harvest this Nanny and was just over 9 1/2" and she was aged at 13+ as there were so many age rings stacked at the base it was next to impossible to decipher some. When I registered this goat they felt it was a great goat to harvest. I for sure wouldnt harvest a Nanny if I was able to find a mature billy of any sort but on this hunt she was the best goat to harvest in my opinion. looked like in this area the mature billies had been kept to a minimum do to fairly easy access.

AWESOME! love that top pic!!

 

[Floorguy]

AWESOME! love that top pic!!

Me too, Jeans and Tshirt for the win!

 

[60x]

Me too, Jeans and Tshirt for the win!

all he needs is the hip boots...lol

 

[sheepguide]

Me too, Jeans and Tshirt for the win!

20 yrs of guiding to a few hundred animals in NE BC, the Yukon and Alberta and they killed just as much as the Kuiu and Sitka I wear now. LOL

Rocking the jeans on a great day 55" moose and a 165" stone ram killed 2hrs apart on a late season October BC hunt.

 

[thru-hunter]

I harvested a nanny on my one goat hunt and will hold out for a billy next go round. That said I have never wished for the bullet back and I still admire the rug hanging in my reloading room and think back to that epic trip often.

 

[Aron Snyder]

I am not a big fan of shooting nannies. The biggest reason is how it effects the herd population. There is a reason here in Alaska why biologists do not want you to take nannies. Having said that it is a legal harvest and I understand why hunters will take a nannie. It does seem like there are a lot more pictures of nannies posted online lately then there has been in the past.

I don't know how it is in other states, but many of the Alaska ranges I have hunted goats in a billy can be more of a challenge. Especially the old mature billy who is off by himself in rocks rather than a group of nannies at a lower elevation.

Mt Goat hunting may be my personal favorite because of so many opportunities to hunt healthy herds in different areas. Taking the occasional nannie will not have an impact, but if a lot of goat hunters take nannies, some of those opportunities will go away.

View attachment 14900

Neither am I. The fact is if you remove enough mature nannies from a heard, that healthy herd now has a significant chance to become a declining herd.



Ironically I find many hunters knowingly shoot a nannie just to say they shot a goat. I do not know one experienced goat hunter that shoots nannies. If you happen to live in a state where goat hunting is a once in a lifetime opportunity or you are forced to pay $15,000 for a guided hunt, I completely understand the want to take any goat home. However removing a two year old billy from the herd is better management than removing an 8 year old nannie unless you want herd numbers down. It's biology, not conjecture.

Colorado issues nanny only tags (what orion drew that year), so shooting a Billy wasn't an option.

 

[justin davis]

No offense Orion, but what are you basing that on? I cannot speak for what works in the Lower 48 for goat management, but that is the exact opposite strategy to what is encouraged here in Alaska.

Here is a link to a good article on managing Mt Goats in Alaska:

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=522

Too quote a few key lines:

“Research shows that when a population is in decline, if you continue to harvest nannies, and especially older nannies, you can lose the whole population,” Mooney said. “Since the average age of breeding females is four, and some females don’t breed until they are five or even six, you lose a lot of your recruitment.”

“People were taking older nannies, generally meaning you don’t have the young ones out there. They’re taking the breeding crop.”


The ideal management tool would be to restrict hunters to taking only billy goats. One billy can impregnate many nannies, and protecting nannies means more kids. But the difficulty in distinguishing nannies from billies makes that impractical.


From a goat biologist in Alberta:

Older nannies are critical to the herd’s growth as well. “About 80 percent of the 9 to 11 year-old-females have a kid each year,” he said, “These are the primary contributors to the population. Longevity is key to reproductive success.” First time mothers – at four or five years old – tend to be somewhat less successful. The older nannies tend to have more kids that live past one year of age. The younger nannies also tend to skip a year and not get pregnant, a reproductive pause. Alaska researchers observed similar tendencies.

That's pretty interesting. What I would think is a older goat is actually in its prime reproductive time period of its life.

Colorado division of wildlife should take a look at this data. Or maybe they want to manage goat herds like they do elk and deer. And just hammer everything hard cuz they need money.

 

[shanevg]

That's pretty interesting. What I would think is a older goat is actually in its prime reproductive time period of its life.

Colorado division of wildlife should take a look at this data. Or maybe they want to manage goat herds like they do elk and deer. And just hammer everything hard cuz they need money.

Justin, take a look at my post in page 2 of this thread. Management in introduced herds is much different than management in non-native herds. In introduced herds (CO, UT, NV and other areas including Crazy Mountains in MT and Kodiak Island in AK) can be managed for much higher harvest rates than a native herd. In fact nanny harvest promotes higher fecundity (reproduction) and can help increase herd side in an introduced herd.

Mountain goats are unique in that they are the only ungulate I'm aware of that has completely different dynamics between native herds and introduced herds. One of many reasons I like mountain goats so much. If you want to read more about it, pick up a copy of "Mountain Goats: Ecology, Behavior, and Conservation of an Alpine Ungulate" by Marco Festa-Bianchet and Steeve D. Cote. Their research is really the basis for all present-day mountain goat management.

I don't want to undermine the pride or trophy quality of harvesting a nanny either. I would certainly harvest a nanny in many situations. I apply for nanny tags in UT every single year. I just want to encourage people (especially in BC and AK where you can hunt goats over the counter) to talk to a local biologist before purposely shooting a nanny of anytime as more than just overall "herd health" really does come into play. (Obviously the healthier the herd the better it can sustain nanny harvest, just trying to say don't assume it's OK in a big herd.)

Multiple people have mentioned that they think it would be better for a herd to shoot an old nanny than a young billy. Based on everything I've read (which has been mentioned multiple times by me and others in this post) it is actually better for a herd to harvest young billies or even young nannies than older nannies. (At least in a native herd.)

 

[SJ-AK]

SJ with all due respect I disagree with you completely.. I took a nanny and as a hunting guide in Alaska for the better part of 15 years I have had quite a bit of mountain expeerience.. I also know quite a few other mountain guides that would also and have taken nannys responsibly.I hold the Value of every animal I take as a trophy.. I honestly do understand the biological impacts which is why I have been stressing healthy herd.. I think people hunt for all types of reasons and some simply view every animal as a trophy.. I do absolutely appreciate all the good conversation and of course welcome all opinions..

My comment about experienced goat hunters (that I know, which is not every one in Alaska obviously) not taking nannies is legitimate based on the hunters I know. I liken it to the certain group of sheep hunters who have harvested a few sheep and now will not shoot unless it's exactly the ram they are looking for (40", double broomer, 10YO, etc). They don't want a 8YO who barely makes full curl. I know you know the type I am talking about.

Nevertheless my points remain the same. Nannies are legal to harvest and I don't berate anyone for it. However I have never read any material regarding goat management in Alaska or spoke with a biologist that said its good to shoot nannies (the south end of Kodiak may be an exception right now but I have not spoke with the Kodiak biologist). All of the links and quote's I provided support my position. I believe taking nannies would be illegal everywhere here if it were easier to distinguish between the two sexes. Everytime a nannie is taken it has two potential fallouts; the herd declining and limiting other hunting opportunities. How many goat areas have gone to a draw or registration hunt here in Alaska in the last decade? What do you think is the major reason for that?

Once again I want to state that I understand why some hunters take nannies. Having said that if the majority of hunters going into the field took a nannie for whatever reason (1st goat, couldn't tell the difference, etc) then the abundance of goat hunting opportunities we currently enjoy will go away.

Thanks all for the good conversation, as most can probably tell goat management is near and dear to my heart.

Shane

 

[shanevg]

Thanks all for the good conversation, as most can probably tell goat management is near and dear to my heart.

Shane

I feel like we'd get along pretty well!

 

[60x]

Shane when I started this thread I was more thinking along the lines of the social aspects of hunters taking nannies and those types of hunters who feel the need to look down upon those that do. The thread has somewhat morphed in the biological aspect and I suppose they go hand in hand to an extent. I hope I didn't come across to you the wrong way as I appreciate your passion as well as others here and I do believe the posts and links you provided will be a benefit to all those reading this thread. I still and will always believe in responsible hunting. Oh and for the record I don't believe anyone posting has been anything but supportive of each other, cause quite honestly this thread in some other forum likely would of headed for the toilet..

 

[SJ-AK]

I feel like we'd get along pretty well!

Plus we both have a supercool name!

 

[SJ-AK]

Shane when I started this thread I was more thinking along the lines of the social aspects of hunters taking nannies and those types of hunters who feel the need to look down upon those that do. The thread has somewhat morphed in the biological aspect and I suppose they go hand in hand to an extent. I hope I didn't come across to you the wrong way as I appreciate your passion as well as others here and I do believe the posts and links you provided will be a benefit to all those reading this thread. I still and will always believe in responsible hunting. Oh and for the record I don't believe anyone posting has been anything but supportive of each other, cause quite honestly this thread in some other forum likely would of headed for the toilet..

No offense taken at all and I agree with you completely. I would never have even bothered to comment on a thread like this on any other forum just for the reasons you stated. Rokslide is a cut above when it comes to maturity and I hope it stays that way. It is ok to debate and disagree without being uncivil (unless you are talking about Kuiu ).

 

[mwhamm]

The first goat I harvested was a nanny. I didn't know any different at the time. My second was a mature billy. I think it's all billies from here on our for me. Since that first goat I've learned a lot about goats and understand the importance of harvesting billies. Also, it often can be more challenging and rewarding.

That said , I'm taking a my brother goat hunting this year. He's never gone goat hunting and may never go again. If he wants to shoot a nanny, I won't stop him.

 

[mwhamm]

My first goat and Nanny.

My second goat, a billy, on its way to being made into a rug.