Sheep Show in Reno

[ismith]

It’s been a week, it’s been hard.

 

[Labman]

Dang it that’s a heart breaker

Ya, it is.

Here’s what’s hard to justify…flights, hotels, meals, rental car/uber, banquet tickets (the only expense the WSF sees a portion of), child care, dog boarding, the list goes on. For what? 1/600 or worse odds at a sheep hunt. If there was another reason to attend then I could see it. But after you’ve been there a few times how do you tell yourself it’s worth it to go every year? If you’re playing odds I think you’re far better off finding a raffle that has a limited number of tickets and buying a dollar amount that you would have spent on the expenditures listed above. It tears me up a bit, but that’s life I guess.

Who wants to hunt desert sheep anyways…

 

[ismith]

Ya, it is.

Here’s what’s hard to justify…flights, hotels, meals, rental car/uber, banquet tickets (the only expense the WSF sees a portion of), child care, dog boarding, the list goes on. For what? 1/600 or worse odds at a sheep hunt. If there was another reason to attend then I could see it. But after you’ve been there a few times how do you tell yourself it’s worth it to go every year? If you’re playing odds I think you’re far better off finding a raffle that has a limited number of tickets and buying a dollar amount that you would have spent on the expenditures listed above. It tears me up a bit, but that’s life I guess.

Who wants to hunt desert sheep anyways…
View attachment 358270

Buy some XRP, better odds of being able to afford some sheep hunts in the future.

 

[fulldraw]

Ya, it is.

Here’s what’s hard to justify…flights, hotels, meals, rental car/uber, banquet tickets (the only expense the WSF sees a portion of), child care, dog boarding, the list goes on. For what? 1/600 or worse odds at a sheep hunt. If there was another reason to attend then I could see it. But after you’ve been there a few times how do you tell yourself it’s worth it to go every year? If you’re playing odds I think you’re far better off finding a raffle that has a limited number of tickets and buying a dollar amount that you would have spent on the expenditures listed above. It tears me up a bit, but that’s life I guess.

Who wants to hunt desert sheep anyways…
View attachment 358270

I totally understand what you are saying. My wife has two brothers that live in Northern California and they come over to Reno for three days so it works out as a mini family vacation for all of us. I don’t think I would be going every year if it wasn’t for that.

 

[Jape]

Anyone see any pictures of the New Mexico ram that has the hit out on it for over a million?

No, but this is the ram JJ shot in NM last year. I think he paid $600k for that tag. Grossed out at 208. Not sure what net was. My guess is there is a bigger one that is being watched day and night by an outfitter for $1.3M.

 

[Bambistew]

I can't wait to see how many less sheep we have this year.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

I'm sure this year will end up with more sheep inesead of half as many as we did 10 years ago.

MT issued the fewest number of sheep tags last year sine 1970.

#auctiontag$$ave$heep
#it$forcon$servation

What would we do without the wealthy sheephunter foundation and their backpack races?

How many fewer sheep is there in NA than 30 years ago? 50% less?

Still waiting for the gloves er I mean oven mitts come off.

Keep sending in that money its sure keeping sheep on the mountain.

 

[Sandbrew]

I guess I should have gone. Name got pulled in the 1 more for 4. Hope whoever won it has a great hunt!

That sucks for you but the rest of us in the room cheered for you not being there.....Sorry!

 

[Labman]

That sucks for you but the rest of us in the room cheered for you not being there.....Sorry!

That’s fine, I’ll save my celebration for when I put my 3rd Colorado rocky on the wall.

 

[Jape]

I can't wait to see how many less sheep we have this year.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

I'm sure this year will end up with more sheep inesead of half as many as we did 10 years ago.

MT issued the fewest number of sheep tags last year sine 1970.

#auctiontag$$ave$heep
#it$forcon$servation

What would we do without the wealthy sheephunter foundation and their backpack races?

How many fewer sheep is there in NA than 30 years ago? 50% less?

Still waiting for the gloves er I mean oven mitts come off.

Keep sending in that money its sure keeping sheep on the mountain.

@Bambistew that seems to be my observation as well. The only state I can find that has really good transparency is Arizona. I keep researching and still haven’t seen any hard data linking these auction tags to more sheep and thus more tags. If anybody has some I would love to see it.

 

[OMB]

@Bambistew that seems to be my observation as well. The only state I can find that has really good transparency is Arizona. I keep researching and still haven’t seen any hard data linking these auction tags to more sheep and thus more tags. If anybody has some I would love to see it.

This is from the Summer 2023 WSF magazine article on auction tags by Craig Boddington. Unsurprisingly, he thinks that auction tags are necessary and good. That said, I'd guess the data set looks even worse for some states if you pulled the time horizon back to 2000 or 1990. We know Nevada has fallen behind their 2020 and 2010 tag allocations since this was published. And I'd argue that programs like Kuiu's Conservation Direct have done more for sheep in the last few years than auction tags have done in most of these states. But obviously they're doing work in states and herds that don't have a guaranteed 200" ram to shoot when you stroke a check.

Food for thought.

 

[TheTone]

Conservation direct seems awesome and somehow they aren’t having to let some rich guy kill a ram to get the projects done. Amazing!

 

[Carnage2011]

I understand both sides of this argument, but I think questioning the numbers alone is a flawed metric. Have sheep numbers dropped? Yes they have. Would the numbers be worse if we didn't have conservation orgs working on them? Also Yes. Is the WSF getting the most out of the money that they bring in for conservation? I don't know that answer. I think there are really good orgs out there doing good work, but I don't know if we can quantify what effect they are having in this case.

 

[Jape]

I understand both sides of this argument, but I think questioning the numbers alone is a flawed metric. Have sheep numbers dropped? Yes they have. Would the numbers be worse if we didn't have conservation orgs working on them? Also Yes. Is the WSF getting the most out of the money that they bring in for conservation? I don't know that answer. I think there are really good orgs out there doing good work, but I don't know if we can quantify what effect they are having in this case.

You make a great point. It’s also multifactorial so sometimes tough to delineate between cause and effect. I would love to see more transparency to see what effect organizations like WSF is having as compared to other organizations and game/fish departments. WSF has raised over $100million and it just seems like that amount of money would lead to more significant gains. Maybe I’m wrong.

 

[huntmtelk]

Also, you need to take into account places like Montana where fish and game seem to always be reactive instead of proactive when it comes to management of wildlife.

 

[MaybelNellie]

Tough deal right there. And agree totally at Hunt Expo.

The way I justify Reno money-wise is the free draws (except for sneaking in good odds raffles like the Stone hunt when my wife isn't looking). This year there where 6 "free" draws with great odds - Tough Sheep workout (cost $100), IMF4 (for those of us that hunted Stone's pre-covid and are still broke), Desert at life member, Rocky in Alberta on one of the dinner nights and a Desert just for buying a show ticket (might be off on the last one). Then there's the <1 if you qualify (cost $45). That's enough for me, and almost everyone knows or heard of someone else who drew one of these.

Besides that, the energy at <1 which everyone goes to for the unlimited beer is INSANE! And, I feel the people at Sheep Show are the absolute best, the backpack races, circle bar time, talking with the old-time outfitters, etc, etc... And, I wonder how many attendees even killed a ram. This again makes the hope and wonder of the whole event that much better. Only downside is the culture shock I get back when I fly home to Denver.

 

[Bambistew]

I understand both sides of this argument, but I think questioning the numbers alone is a flawed metric. Have sheep numbers dropped? Yes they have. Would the numbers be worse if we didn't have conservation orgs working on them? Also Yes. Is the WSF getting the most out of the money that they bring in for conservation? I don't know that answer. I think there are really good orgs out there doing good work, but I don't know if we can quantify what effect they are having in this case.

No doubt there are some orgs that have helped some populations and its doubtful it was because of auction tags. I'm jaded because the Alaska W$F hasn't done shit. They could go away and we'd actually end up with more sheep on the mountain becuse they pimped fewer via auction, raffle and donated hunts... We'd save at least 10 rams a year in AK, about 50 N/A wide or more. Right now W$F efforts result in a net decrease of sheep. Thats more ram tags than some states issue. I'd genuienly like to know how many raffle, donated and auction tags are issued a year. I bet my 50 estimate isn't far off...

25+ years of "helping sheep" by selling them to the highest bidder, here's the result.

 

[Khunter]

No doubt there are some orgs that have helped some populations and its doubtful it was because of auction tags. I'm jaded because the Alaska W$F hasn't done shit. They could go away and we'd actually end up with more sheep on the mountain becuse they pimped fewer via auction, raffle and donated hunts... We'd save at least 10 rams a year in AK, about 50 N/A wide or more. Right now W$F efforts result in a net decrease of sheep. Thats more ram tags than some states issue. I'd genuienly like to know how many raffle, donated and auction tags are issued a year. I bet my 50 estimate isn't far off...

25+ years of "helping sheep" by selling them to the highest bidder, here's the result.


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Believe your, and some other folks, negative assessment of sheep conservation orgs achievements completely ignores one major point: What would sheep populations and sheep harvest look like if there were no sheep conservation orgs funding projects to benefit sheep habitat, transplanting sheep to new areas or to repopulate and are lost to disease etc.

For example the RMBS has raised money from sheep auction and raffle tags and the proceeds have been sued to permanently buy out domestic sheep allotments. No way those efforts were in vain and that is but ONE example.

Wonder what sort of miracles some of y'all would expect sheep conservation orgs to do with all the headwinds they face against prioritizing sheep enhancement over other competing issues and priorities from state and fed govt and other users of public lands? I would say meaningful progress has been made to prevent much worse decline in the condition of wild sheep herds at a minimum.

Know squat about Alaska and Canadian sheep issues so speaking from experience here in the lower 48 and Colorado especially where RMBS funds raised have definitely had beneficial impact.

Now, when WSF aligned with outfitters to steal resident public draw sheep hunter opportunity in NM to put tags in the pockets of the wealthy nonresidents, that was a dirty, dirty deed that was all about the CA$H and for that I am not giving them a pass. To be fair NM wildlife mismanagement is all about taking from average Joe resident and giving hunt opportunities to wealthy nonresidents who can buy their way in each year for elk

 

[MaybelNellie]

RMBS is a model affiliated-WSF org, and I understand Wyoming WSF and Nevada's are the same. Both WY and NV will never push out a 208" Rocky or a 190" Desert, but the massive work they do to maintain existing and establish/enhance new herds with the very important large herd sizes each state has absolutely justifies national WSF auctions and state raffle tags in my opinion. CO, WY, NV are the backbone of our overall Bighorn herd and the WSF and affiliates are critical in making this happen.

As for thinhorns, all most of us understand is what we read, but tough to blame WSF when winter has seemed to now start in May when lambs drop, g-bear hunting is suppressed or cancelled altogether (in BC) and wolves aren't being managed from aircraft or traplines like they once were (old outfitters tell me this). And, why are Dalls in the NWT doing so well? No bad winters and still enough caribou. I was told in Reno by an Alaska guy that F&G thinks there is correlation in increased sheep-wolf predation to the huge drop in caribou herds. Probably same in northern BC.

I give WSF the benefit of the doubt and take the huge good with the minor bad.

 

[Bambistew]

Believe your, and some other folks, negative assessment of sheep conservation orgs achievements completely ignores one major point: What would sheep populations and sheep harvest look like if there were no sheep conservation orgs funding projects to benefit sheep habitat, transplanting sheep to new areas or to repopulate and are lost to disease etc.

For example the RMBS has raised money from sheep auction and raffle tags and the proceeds have been sued to permanently buy out domestic sheep allotments. No way those efforts were in vain and that is but ONE example.

Wonder what sort of miracles some of y'all would expect sheep conservation orgs to do with all the headwinds they face against prioritizing sheep enhancement over other competing issues and priorities from state and fed govt and other users of public lands? I would say meaningful progress has been made to prevent much worse decline in the condition of wild sheep herds at a minimum.

Know squat about Alaska and Canadian sheep issues so speaking from experience here in the lower 48 and Colorado especially where RMBS funds raised have definitely had beneficial impact.

Now, when WSF aligned with outfitters to steal resident public draw sheep hunter opportunity in NM to put tags in the pockets of the wealthy nonresidents, that was a dirty, dirty deed that was all about the CA$H and for that I am not giving them a pass. To be fair NM wildlife mismanagement is all about taking from average Joe resident and giving hunt opportunities to wealthy nonresidents who can buy their way in each year for elk

Interesting, I thought it was the state game agencies transplanting sheep and not W$F, using funds from selling public wildlife. Imagine of they got 100% of the funding from the transactions.

Also Gray said the gloves were coming off when he took the helm. What happened? The state orgs are doing all the heavy lifting.

If WSF is the savior of sheep why do we have less sheep? Seems like without them we'd have more. By my estimate at least 50 more a year! Times 20 years, that's 4x more sheep than Nebraska has. W$F has killed more sheep than Movi.

The NM residents who are missing out on opportunities is a funny analogy. Considering that those rich NR are paying for your game management. If you don't see the irony in comparison to the W$F I'm not sure what to say.

My favorite thing about the Wealthy Sheephunter Foundation are the belt buckle awards. Worshipping dudes who kill sheep is funny shit. I have more respect for fly fishermen.

 

[winmag]

If WSF is the savior of sheep why do we have less sheep? Seems like without them we'd have more. By my estimate at least 50 more a year! Times 20 years, that's 4x more sheep than Nebraska has. W$F has killed more sheep than Movi.

50x20=1000 rams. Remove a ram and you remove 1 sheep. It’s not like removing ewes.

If Movi only killed 1000 sheep in the past 20 years we’d have a boatload of sheep. If Movi didn’t suppress lamb recruitment and therefore population growth over the past 20 years the way it does we’d have a boatload of sheep.

Current sheep population declines aren’t driven by sheep being killed by hunters; whether those hunters drew the tag, won the tag, or bought the tag.

We get it, you don’t like WSF.