PRESERVE BIGHORNS
Looks like baaaad news for hunters, but good news for bighorn sheep. The province is considering changing its definition of trophy sheep and establishing a shorter hunting season in areas for the 2016 season. The definition centres around the curl of a sheep’s horns and its subsequent eligibility to be shot. Right now, the definition of a trophy sheep is if its horns have a four- fifths curl. The province wants to change that to a full curl, which takes a few more years of growth to achieve.
The reason is that, under the broader definition, too many rams are being killed. With the new guidelines, rams will be spared a few more years of life, according to Environment and Sustainable Resource Development spokesman Duncan MacDonnell.
“It means that the sheep will be a couple of years older,” he said. It takes that extra time for a four- fifths horn — something a four- or five-year-old ram sports — to grow out to a full curl.
Hunters and outfitters don’t like the proposed extension of the policy because, they say, this type of restriction in the southern part of the province substantially reduced the tally of trophy rams shot in the first five years it was implemented.
However, the province is concerned about overharvesting and a corresponding reduction in the quality of trophy rams hunters have been bagging. The province’s attitude is a good one and shows the kind of concern for conservation and sustainability that it should extend to its endangered herds of caribou.
As Environment Minister Kyle Fawcett has pointed out, “biologically, there needs to be some mature rams left in the population to ensure a healthy range and size- class structure in order for them to succeed.”
Right now, the province says there aren’t enough four- and five- year- old rams that survive the hunting season to keep numbers up. This, we would guess, is likely due to the fervour with which hunters and outfitters, who make money taking hunting parties into the wilderness, have been killing them. It sounds like, through their own actions, they brought these restrictions on themselves.
In other words, if hunters and outfitters want rams available for shooting in the future, they have to leave enough animals to mate with ewes and produce more sheep. Basic birds- and- bees mathematics, it seems.
Alberta’s bighorn sheep are an iconic provincial animal, symbolizing as they do the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. They must be preserved, not just for those in search of trophies, but in plentiful enough numbers for those who only want to shoot them with cameras.