Dall sheep hunting on Federal public lands in Brooks Range closed thru 2024

[Bambistew]

Still, going back to the Salmon wars of the 70's and 80's, they've only ever wanted 1/2 of the catch, and even with all those liberal forms of take, they don't get 1/2 of the overall take, not if you considering ocean commercial harvests and bycatch (including foreign fleets).

Too much money and influence with fish.

 

[theat]

I'll be hiking and pack rafting around 150 miles through that area in a few weeks. I've spoken with some locals, transporters and park rangers and every one of them said that the sheep populations are way down. Most attribute it to several bad winters and weather events over the past handful of years. I'm still hoping to see some sheep while there.

 

[Mallardsx2]

Sooooo glad to see the subsistence hunters still get to hunt the sheep.

Nothing like watching them drive up and down the river in a power boat plugging as many caribou in the back of the head as possible. And to think that this isn’t a self sustaining model/method of take?!

 

[Bambistew]

Sooooo glad to see the subsistence hunters still get to hunt the sheep.

Nothing like watching them drive up and down the river in a power boat plugging as many caribou in the back of the head as possible. And to think that this isn’t a self sustaining model/method of take?!

Sheep hunting is closed to subsistence in this area.

The far western Brooks has been closed for close to 10 years now to non-qualified users. I hunted it 2 years before it closed. The area is prone to large swings of population, but hunting only old mature rams has little to no impact on the herd rebounding. Subsistence is still open and they kill a few, most are accessed by air, but a few off the rivers... in their exclusive subsistence river corridors.

Really no comment on the caribou hunting methods, other than the closures in the north west to non-locals was BS considering how small the overall take is, and the reasoning behind the closure. "Scaring" caribou from their normal migration corridors? Not sure how blasting a few out of a herd from a boat as they swim by doesn't affect the migration, but no one wants to talk about that. Or the dozens and dozens of two stroke boats that you can hear from 5 miles away running the river... but its the air traffic that scared the bou from their migratory patterns. (insert sarcasm font)

I'll be hiking and pack rafting around 150 miles through that area in a few weeks. I've spoken with some locals, transporters and park rangers and every one of them said that the sheep populations are way down. Most attribute it to several bad winters and weather events over the past handful of years. I'm still hoping to see some sheep while there.

No doubt sheep numbers are down across most of the state. The winter and late spring of 2013 was a killer everywhere, and up there they had a couple brutal winters in the last 3-4 years. Very few legal rams will be available this year because of the lack of lamb and yearlings from that 2013 winter/spring. It will take a while to dig out of the hole we're in. T

Luckily only about 1/2 of the legal rams (by age) available are killed every year unless is super heavy pressure, but recruitment of those just legal rams come into the harvest each year. Problem is we're missing many of those. Unit 19C is also in terrible shape, maybe worse than the Brooks. The central AK range will likely bounce the fastest due to amount of sheep habitat and population, but who knows. Last winter was terrible there, and population surveys are difficult to get done this year due to weather.

 

[BigHornRam]

Yep, quite a few groups in Alaska have spoken out about it. WSF as well as SCI.

BHA is a self proclaimed access organization. That’s a lot of access down the drain. Yes, I’m a member of BHA…I question that decision more everyday. I think the state level BHA orgs do some good, but the national level is garbage at this point.

This has nothing to do with population levels. Alaska biologists spoke out against this and the feds still pushed it through. So much for the state managing their wildlife….

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[Revenuerman]

Just wait until they get that land back thing going.