"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." Cicero - 55 BC
..... The NDP approach: if the facts don't fit your ideology, just pretend the facts don't exist.......
All this flak over a single incident?
No need to change anything. In the big picture harvest age is good, minimal hassle with short sheep, pops. appear okay as the day/kill are trundling along fine.
Each year there are short/young sheep confiscated, and each year there are ones that get through the inspection.
It only takes fb and hbc to make a mountain of a mole hill
BC's gos thinhorns is something to be cherished and protected
Taking older class rams has proven to be sustainable, start messing with younger kills and the whole hunt will go to shite
Last edited by boxhitch; 05-09-2019 at 07:59 PM.
Never say whoa in the middle of a mud hole
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." Cicero - 55 BC
..... The NDP approach: if the facts don't fit your ideology, just pretend the facts don't exist.......
While this is a good idea it would not fly. I made the very same suggestion 25 years ago to two wildlife biologists. They took the idea forward to the CO branch who quickly nixed the idea. Their response was that it would be impossible to manage regarding enforcement. Another suggestion made regarding LEH for any ram is also not a good idea, as the whole purpose of harvesting rams of a defined maturity or age is to ensure older rams that are past their prime breeding age are killed. The rams in the prime of their breeding years are to be left alone. The whole aging discussion is a complicated one. You used to be able to shoot Rocky MTN Bighorns and Cali's based on age. That requirement was abandoned years ago, because to many under age rams were being shot. Spences Bridge went from full curl to mature full curl for exactly the same reason. There is no simple answer here, other than for the most part Sheep Hunting takes a lot of discipline knowledge and hard work. It's not for everyone, but is it well worth the effort, if you have what it takes.
I’ve spoken with a ci about a broomed off ram. He said if it has 6 visible annuli and he can see it’s broomed off the first and second years annuli he can pass it with a age of eight based on his or her expertise and what else they see indicating age. If it’s is broomed more than this a biologist has to do the ci but can then pass it based on there expertise and other things as well. I’ve seen a ram with both horns broken off 7” long and 5 visible annuli on each horn get aged at 10 years old and was plugged. So for them to only use the visible annuli to age that ram is false
BCWF
VIPDC
To me the issue lies with the subjectivity in the words "as evidenced by true horn annuli as determined by the regional manager or his designate".
Someone earlier in this thread made a comparison between true horn annuli and visible horn annuli. Up until now I understood the intent of the words true annuli as to mean not false annuli, rather than visible annuli. I attended Bill Jex's aging seminar at the sheep show this year and one of the topics he spoke on, and had graphs to show it, was the very, very predictable growth pattern of horns. I'm sure everyone experienced in aging sheep knows that based on this universally accepted pattern there is a year of growth broken off this ram in question. So why wasn't the regional manager or his designate able to see this and say the ram was 8+?
The judge cited "had not established on a balance of probabilities the ram was eight years old." This is the part I don't get. If everyone and their dog, even BJ as evidenced by his presentations, knows this ram is 8 due to the universally accepted growth pattern? It's more like on the balance of probabilities (and then some) the ram certainly is 8!
The issue with the current regulations is the power given to the "regional manager or his designate" to legally "determine" what the "true horn annuli evidence."
In my opinion the regs need to be updated to clarify this issue one way or the other. It is simply unacceptable for it to be possible for a sheep to be deemed legal by one inspector but not by another. This rule needs to be 100% objective.
Last edited by Rampager; 05-09-2019 at 09:34 PM.