Sheep Hunting covered in New York Times (Positive article for hunters)

[Bambistew]

Couple gems...

But the conservation efforts have created a Catch-22. Sheep numbers are on the rise, leading some states to raise the number of permits available through the lotteries, to cull old rams and help keep populations down in specific areas. In turn, more hunters can increase competition for top rams, which can lower the price the wealthy are willing to pay for an auction tag, thus hurting the budgets of those involved in conservation.

It’s a concern for those, like Bob Anderson, the historian of hunting, who have witnessed all the positive changes over recent decades.

“There’s some fear,” Anderson said, “that sheep hunting will strangle on its success.”

I think the fear is the wealthy will have their "trophy" reduced to the common mans elk. Such a terrible thing to worry about. The poor wealthy not getting the recognition they deserve by shooting record class animals scouted for years and given a name. On the contrary I don't think enthusiasm by the Joe Sixpack will wane anytime soon.

Killing those old rams is far and away the best way to keep the population down. Is this typical of the type of "conservationists" who buys these tags?

Where are these sheep numbers on the rise? I'm not aware of anywhere outside of a herd here or there that are actually growing anywhere in NA. I think a more true statement is they are on the decline in most areas and some areas are holding steady.

The story also highlights the true reason for auction tags, animals are worth more if they are bigger, or potential "record" class. Finally someone admitted it... it's not about conservation considering that the permit was

more than he wanted to pay.

“As far as sheep-hunting being a rich man’s sport, that’s absolutely true,” said Vance Corrigan, 84, who lives along the Yellowstone River in Livingston, Mont., and is one of the most accomplished big-game hunters in the world. “But if it weren’t for the rich man, those sheep wouldn’t be there.”

Self proclaimed? Number of heads on the wall? Or money invested? I think we all have our own values of accomplishment.

Thank god for the rich!

 

[BigHornRam]

There's no sheep. There are grizzlies everywhere. The outfitters camp on the only legal ram that ever wanders out of the park. And shut the season down before the average guy ever has a chance.

Atleast that's what all the guys that have never set foot in there tell me.

Being a candy ass whiner has nothing to do with it.

 

[Hunting Wife]

This article reinforces the idea of "trophy hunting" that most of the public abhors. I don't really see how it did hunters any favors.

An article about how much money is generated via regular license sales and how that makes up the overwhelming majority of the funding for state wildlife agencies would have been vastly better, and more educational for the public.

 

[jrabq]

Where are these sheep numbers on the rise? I'm not aware of anywhere outside of a herd here or there that are actually growing anywhere in NA. I think a more true statement is they are on the decline in most areas and some areas are holding steady.

Not sure about the rest of NA but in NM the populations are on the rise, in large part to expansion efforts and predator control. The expansion efforts mostly revolve around helicopter capture and transport, which is very expensive. From what I've heard those efforts are funded in large part by the money raised via raffle and auction tags. Just a few years ago we had 1 desert bighorn tag available through the big game draw, plus 1 or 2 auction/raffle tags. Now there are about 20 desert tags in the drawing, and the prospects of more hunts coming in the future.

So yeah, thank god the rich!

 

[Big Fin]

This article reinforces the idea of "trophy hunting" that most of the public abhors. I don't really see how it did hunters any favors.

An article about how much money is generated via regular license sales and how that makes up the overwhelming majority of the funding for state wildlife agencies would have been vastly better, and more educational for the public.

I worry the same thing.

Yes, I like the world to know that hunters heavily fund conservation, but what I read seemed to follow a common narrative that we only fund such efforts for our own self-serving purposes. Not true, but the average reader does not have our experience and context by which to absorb a story such as that.

I would have far preferred it to focus on food aspects, public access, and when it talked about conservation funding, I wish it would have mentioned as some stated earlier in this thread; the huge impact that millions of average hunters have to this conservation funding model, in terms of money from license/taxes/donations, volunteerism, and advocacy.

But, a story of that depth probably is harder for the journalist to grasp and properly tell, or just not worth the limited inventory of words the NYT has for any single piece.

 

[TheTone]

I would gladly hunt the unlimited if I could find the time off in the fall to do so. Unfortunately I screwed up and my work gets really busy in the fall, I'm lucky if I even hunt two days in a row per fall.

 

[The Hedgehog]

It's great to see a very positive hunting article in a paper with about the largest circulation on earth. The criticism here is odd.

For those who'd prefer to put the emphasis on the hunting experience and excellent table fare - there's always the option of hitting the Missouri Breaks or the center of the Spanish Peaks on a ewe tag in Montana. Something tells me that few will be dumping all the preference points they've acquired for a scenic ewe hunt and not the big horns they dream about.

I think somebody already said it - that anybody can hunt sheep if they want to. As as did Ray Ault (in the article), who killed the former world record archery bighorn in a MT unlimited area. Lace up your boots, or get out your checkbook. Or just wait for your number to come up in the lottery. Burn's sheep hunt is exactly what I'd want out of a MT public land bighorn hunt.

 

[Elkmagnet]

Grovel! You unappreciative candy asses.

 

[6speed]

Is Doug Sayer writing under the pseudonym John Branch?

 

[The Hedgehog]

Why sheep are expensive trophies..

 

[jmgraham1986]

Snuck in there, where's Waldo.

Hells bells, I didnt know BW was a celebrity!

 

[BigHornRam]

Why sheep are expensive trophies..

That's old school Econ 101, Greenhorn. In today's modern progressive Sanders school of economics, all sheep hunts are free.

 

[Hunting Wife]

For the sake of discussion, I'll try to clarify what my criticism of the article is about. Looking at this from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about hunting, tag systems, or conservation funding, the message seems to be that rich men who pay obscene amounts of money to shoot "trophies" and hang them on their wall are the drivers of conservation. That simply isn't true, but the only hunting stories the public sees are the sensational ones that reinforce this idea - Cecil the lion, rhino tags, now bighorn sheep. Seems to me the argument from the Sanders school of Economics would then be, "damn, if hunters are all rich people, why are tags so cheap? Auction them all to the highest bidder. We are losing precious conservation dollars!".

There is also a perception by many in the non-hunting public that hunters only fund conservation of trophy species "so they can kill more of them". Sheep hunting as described in the article supports that argument perfectly. I wish the public understood that the dollars that the vast majority of hunters spend does not go just to conserving a single "trophy" species; that hunter dollars are often the sole source of funding for state wildlife agencies, which are charged with conservation of all wildlife species, game and non-game, that the public enjoys. I think those are very important points that the mainstream public doesn't understand and never gets to hear. And I think that message would resonate with a much broader segment of the non-hunting public than the message in the current article.

So, while I'm glad to see a mainstream outlet run an article about hunting, I think there is room for improvement as far as the message. My criticism has nothing to do with who can or can not hunt sheep, or their reasons for wanting to do so. But I think the message that the rich are the sole benefactors of wildlife conservation is dangerous in the long term for hunting.

I'm curious to hear other perspectives.

 

[Elkmagnet]

For the sake of discussion, I'll try to clarify what my criticism of the article is about. Looking at this from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about hunting, tag systems, or conservation funding, the message seems to be that rich men who pay obscene amounts of money to shoot "trophies" and hang them on their wall are the drivers of conservation. That simply isn't true, but the only hunting stories the public sees are the sensational ones that reinforce this idea - Cecil the lion, rhino tags, now bighorn sheep. Seems to me the argument from the Sanders school of Economics would then be, "damn, if hunters are all rich people, why are tags so cheap? Auction them all to the highest bidder. We are losing precious conservation dollars!".

There is also a perception by many in the non-hunting public that hunters only fund conservation of trophy species "so they can kill more of them". Sheep hunting as described in the article supports that argument perfectly. I wish the public understood that the dollars that the vast majority of hunters spend does not go just to conserving a single "trophy" species; that hunter dollars are often the sole source of funding for state wildlife agencies, which are charged with conservation of all wildlife species, game and non-game, that the public enjoys. I think those are very important points that the mainstream public doesn't understand and never gets to hear. And I think that message would resonate with a much broader segment of the non-hunting public than the message in the current article.

So, while I'm glad to see a mainstream outlet run an article about hunting, I think there is room for improvement as far as the message. My criticism has nothing to do with who can or can not hunt sheep, or their reasons for wanting to do so. But I think the message that the rich are the sole benefactors of wildlife conservation is dangerous in the long term for hunting.

I'm curious to hear other perspectives.

This is how I feel about it also the difference is I have trouble putting pen to paper. So I went with the snarky one liner.
We have a side of the family that lives in NY and have very little exposure to hunting. I cringe at the thought of them thinking this is what I mean when I say "hunting is funding conservation".
The article reads as though auction tags are the majority of funding when in fact it's the minority by a very large margin. I believe this was intentional. (Perception is reality)
Idaho needs to charge us more than $12.75 for a hunting license and "put more sheep on the mountain" unfortunately the legislature has been bought and IDf&g is being blackmailed into funding it's self with more auction tag's.

Tomorrow, on as the world turns.....

 

[1_pointer]

For the sake of discussion, I'll try to clarify what my criticism of the article is about. Looking at this from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about hunting, tag systems, or conservation funding, the message seems to be that rich men who pay obscene amounts of money to shoot "trophies" and hang them on their wall are the drivers of conservation. That simply isn't true, but the only hunting stories the public sees are the sensational ones that reinforce this idea - Cecil the lion, rhino tags, now bighorn sheep. Seems to me the argument from the Sanders school of Economics would then be, "damn, if hunters are all rich people, why are tags so cheap? Auction them all to the highest bidder. We are losing precious conservation dollars!".

There is also a perception by many in the non-hunting public that hunters only fund conservation of trophy species "so they can kill more of them". Sheep hunting as described in the article supports that argument perfectly. I wish the public understood that the dollars that the vast majority of hunters spend does not go just to conserving a single "trophy" species; that hunter dollars are often the sole source of funding for state wildlife agencies, which are charged with conservation of all wildlife species, game and non-game, that the public enjoys. I think those are very important points that the mainstream public doesn't understand and never gets to hear. And I think that message would resonate with a much broader segment of the non-hunting public than the message in the current article.

So, while I'm glad to see a mainstream outlet run an article about hunting, I think there is room for improvement as far as the message. My criticism has nothing to do with who can or can not hunt sheep, or their reasons for wanting to do so. But I think the message that the rich are the sole benefactors of wildlife conservation is dangerous in the long term for hunting.

I'm curious to hear other perspectives.

Just wanted to quote this to make it more likely that folks read it. Well penned!

 

[BigHornRam]

But I think the message that the rich are the sole benefactors of wildlife conservation is dangerous in the long term for hunting.

I didn't get that message reading the article. The message I got was that hunters are passionate about conservation.


I went to a talk on Gobi Bears by this guy last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_H._Chadwick

It was a good talk, and was not the usual hunter crowd I'm used to being around (more preservationists than conservationists). One thing really stuck out to me. When I left the event, I checked out the bids on the few silent auction items on display. With a standing room crowd of about 150 people, not even an opening bid on any of the items.

Having to point this out to people on a Hunt Site, indeed seems odd to me.

 

[BuzzH]

I got the same impression as HW...all it did was rail on about the rich funding wildlife.

Its always seemed odd to me that a guy that buys a sheep tag for 50, 60, 100K+ receives worship and hero status for "stepping up for wildlife". Yeah, they dropped some coin that is likely used for a good cause...sometimes those causes are more "luxury" than necessity.

What always seems to get lost is the average guy, that volunteers time for teaching hunters education. Guys that volunteer to advocate for public lands, public wildlife, drive half way across large Western States to attend commission meetings, attend Legislative sessions, etc. etc. etc. The same guys that not only belong to a handful of wildlife organizations, but also step up to serve on the boards of those groups, participate in the hands on work, etc. These people are never mentioned in articles like this, isn't that curious?

Lets not also forget, that nearly all the sheep that are being hunted in Montana. Idaho, etc., were transplanted, augmented, and managed well before some rich dude paid 300K for an auction sheep tag. A vast majority were paid for by the rank and file, that in reality sacrifice a lot more of their time and money, on a percentage of income basis, than the guys paying the money for the auction tags. I often question how much "passion" for the sport and wildlife really exists, from those simply scribbling a check to jump to the front of the line to kill a sheep?

A big deal was just made that a Wyoming Governors sheep tag sold for 90K...that's fantastic. But when compared to an over-all, GF working budget of 74-78 million a year, its not that important in the scheme of operating a GF agency...or in managing WY's extensive and diverse wildlife resources.

A handful of rich guys will not secure the future of hunting by simply purchasing expensive sheep tags...that's just a fact.

That article would have been 100 times better by providing more facts on the number of people that buy hunting and fishing licenses, describing how hunters of average means fund a vast majority of wildlife conservation, serve as public land and wildlife advocates, and the associated economic impact of all of it.

It seems really insincere and not very genuine to focus on one species of animal that damn few people are ever going to hunt, and make that the case for wildlife conservation...almost a joke really.

 

[The Hedgehog]

I'm not seeing where this article is negative/offensive as a result of it not having more details/accolades.

 

[BuzzH]

I don't find it negative or offensive either, but I also know the facts about wildlife conservation and who does/did what...doubt 99% of the readers even have a clue about any of that.

It wouldn't take more than a paragraph to give a few facts about where and who funds a majority of wildlife conservation and associated economic impacts.

 

[BigHornRam]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/co...cle_92bd153b-f11b-5c9d-aabd-e5c9f8e8373a.html

So you don't like the Times article, Buzz. Try this one.