BC Provincial Court Judgment on Crawford Stones ram

[whitetailsheds]

http://www.provincialcourt.bc.ca/judgments.php?link=https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcpc/doc/2019/2019bcpc76/2019bcpc76.html

[Caribou_lou]

Interesting read. #43 region 6 Bio feels its important to state he has hunted Stone's Sheep. No mention of a harvest.

I feel for the kid. Many grown men out there will go their whole life without harvesting a Ram. He should be proud of his harvest. Hope he gets back on that mountain and fills another tag!

[blackbart]

For all those that ask where to go for Stone's ram - now you have access to one specific drainage name that obviously produces rams....

[Ron.C]

Wow. Now I know why I dont sheep hunt.

One question on the findings, there was a failure to submit an incisor tooth. Would this have definatively confirmed the Rams age?

[Rieber]

So what's the next step now? Does this kid get charged for harvesting an illegal ram? Does he get the title of "poacher" even though we're all certain the ram was of age despite a little horn wear and tear.

If the courts found this ram not legal for harvest and the defense couldn't prove otherwise, then a penalty should be paid and someone shouldn't be able to hunt for a few years. Is this not what we would expect?

Look, I'm not saying the kid did anything wrong but perhaps after all the hard work to get to this animal, someone was a little too anxious to fill their tag. Maybe there was enough horn length prior to the shot and a bit wore off in the tumble after the shot. Regardless, if it's that close or questionable to being a legal ram, the decision to pass or shoot should have been "Pass". Easy to say this in hindsight but if this kid was FN (for example) the hunting community would be all over this one. I feel terrible for the kid but regulations are in place for a reason.

[358mag]

For all those that ask where to go for Stone's ram - now you have access to one specific drainage name that obviously produces rams....

SSSHHHH ...... The power of Social Media ... Sure it will be a busy place this fall .

[boxhitch]

One question on the findings, there was a failure to submit an incisor tooth. Would this have definatively confirmed the Rams age?
Random search article

............................However, this ideal was not always manifested in the teeth; even in the bestsample the age estimates were wrong by more than1 year for 23% of teeth, and deviations were scat-tered throughout all age classes. Lowe (1967) founda similar discrepancy in teeth of known-age wild reddeer (Cervus elaphus) from the Isle of Rhum, Scot-land. He concluded that patterns of eruption andwear were better indicators of age than were cemen-tum lines.Cementum lines are largely of academic interestin domestic sheep, whose ages are immediatelyapparent from marks clipped into the ear. However,the fact that such sheep develop lines, at pre-dominantly annual intervals, means that the methodcan be used on free-living animals of unknown age.Although about one quarter of such age estimateswill be wrong by more than 1 year, many of themore obvious anomalies can be resolved from thesequence of eruption and the pattern of wear. Nodoubt there will always be a number of unreliableestimates which must be omitted from the sample,or undetected errors to bias the results. Also, inall animal populations there are unavoidablefactors, such as births beyond the normal seasonalrange, stress through trauma or illness, and develop-mental anomalies, which lead to wrong estimates................
Old science, maybe modern methods are more prexact

[boxhitch]

SSSHHHH ...... The power of Social Media ... Sure it will be a busy place this fall .As if this is a new spot, unknown before

[bigredchev]

Talk about dragging a guy through the mud.

The province has much bigger fish and game issues than this to be squandering resources.


Wolves, illegal hunting at night, land issues, poachers of the real kind....

[Bugle M In]

^^^^I hear ya.
Here we have someone who thought (and still believes) they were in the right.
Show up with horns for inspection etc, and end up in court.
Meanwhile, we had guys (???)who were firing a rifle in Spences Bridge Township, killed a lamb,
left it, and took off, and sweet dick all has come from it (wonder why??).

[LBM]

Talk about dragging a guy through the mud.

The province has much bigger fish and game issues than this to be squandering resources.


Wolves, illegal hunting at night, land issues, poachers of the real kind....

He could of just paid the fine for the under age sheep ( by regulation) and been done with it.
He is fighting it so it is not the province dragging him through the mud, they probable wanted to spend there time and resources else where as well.

[backcountry99]

For all those that ask where to go for Stone's ram - now you have access to one specific drainage name that obviously produces rams....

Anybody who believes that ram cams from there is a fool! Nobody is dumb enough to advertise that

[LBM]

Anybody who believes that ram cams from there is a fool! Nobody is dumb enough to advertise that
So are you saying the hunter gave false information on his report.
Under age ram (according to regs) didnt bring out jaw/teeth and false information (if what your suggesting is true)
makes things not look so good.

[backcountry99]

So are you saying the hunter gave false information on his report.
Under age ram (according to regs) didnt bring out jaw/teeth and false information (if what your suggesting is true)
makes things not look so good.

im saying hunters are secretive by nature and nobody would publish were they killed a ram in a public document like that unless there was evidence of were he killed him. Really doesn’t matter but all the comments on were to go next year make me laugh.

[Huss]

I’ve seen this ram. It’s unreasonable to say it isn’t legal. Poor kid is all I can say. Hopefully it doesn’t turn him off hunting.

[boxhitch]

Mr. Jex looked at the horn increment length for the Crawford ram and other rams from the same MU 7 – 42. This was a CI dataset from 1975 – 2017 and involved in total 1,848 rams. Subsets were also compared involving rams taken from 7 – 42 harvested between 2007 – 2017 (368 rams) and rams identified as having either 7 or 9 annuli at the time of harvest (18 rams). These rams were noted by Mr. Jex as being included as part of the specific potential cohort of rams to which the Crawford ram belonged.

several graphs in Exhibit 8. The first graph was “Mean and Specific Inter-Annuli Horn Growth (i.e., proportional symmetry) Aligned by Age, Using CI Horn Data” The disputed measurements were removed, namely 0 - 1 years (lambs) and 1 – 2 years (yearlings). There was tight alignment revealed between the CI datasets and the Crawford ram CI data.

These results, if accepted, support Mr. Jex’s conclusions as reflecting the likely age of the Crawford ram as 7 at its death. In the Crown submission, the assertion that the Crawford ram was 9 years is said to be virtually impossible, the assertion that it was 8 years of age is improbable while the 7 year assessment meets entirely with expectations for a ram that age.

Then the judge made his decision based on the evidence, fuddled by the fact the hunter didn't bring out a tooth 'to help prove his innocence'

[boxhitch]

He could of just paid the fine for the under age sheep ( by regulation) and been done with it.
He is fighting it so it is not the province dragging him through the mud, they probable wanted to spend there time and resources else where as well.No, thats not really the case here

Upon examination, the Crawford ram was determined by the compulsory inspector not to have attained the age of 8 years. This remains the position of the Crown. As a consequence, the ram has not been returned to Mr. Crawford and this action was commenced. No prosecution was taken under the Act (https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/rsbc-1996-c-488/latest/rsbc-1996-c-488.html) or Regulations. [11]
This application was commenced and the applicant seeks an order pursuant to s. 97.6(4) (https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/rsbc-1996-c-488/latest/rsbc-1996-c-488.html#sec97.6subsec4_smooth)(a) of the Act (https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/stat/rsbc-1996-c-488/latest/rsbc-1996-c-488.html) that the Crawford ram be returned to him.

[Walking Buffalo]

Wow. Now I know why I dont sheep hunt.

One question on the findings, there was a failure to submit an incisor tooth. Would this have definatively confirmed the Rams age?

No. Tooth cementum aging is less accurate than counting annuli.



So are you saying the hunter gave false information on his report.
Under age ram (according to regs) didnt bring out jaw/teeth and false information (if what your suggesting is true)
makes things not look so good.

So what you are saying,
Is that you always assume the worst of hunters.

[180grainer]

It's an unfortunate event. The guy who shot the ram certainly shouldn't be looked at as a poacher. That's phuking stupid. We all agree there should be laws but don't realize the precarious nature of abiding by them or enforcing them. This is just an unfortunate event.

[guest]

I have a Stone Ram in the man cave almost identical to this Ram in question. His right side Full curl past the nose. His left broomed heavy and well short. Compulsory inspection at 8.5 years. This Ram too i believe to be 8.5......but that said I too passed on many many Rams because of only counting 7. I wanted an obviously Legal Stone. The Anuli close to the skull can be very tough to see up close. Never mind out at distances 100 yards and more.
Tough call for the young hunter.......I think I would trust Giests opinion over many a many inspectors unfortunately. IMO the COs opinion shouldnt even come into play here. Hes not a biologist. Its not his specialty.
Many inspectors would say yes thats a 8.5 yr old Ram. Some not. Unfortunately.

[.264winmag]

Buncha BS if you ask me. I know where I get CI done it’d be plugged and in the man cave...

[Piperdown]

Buncha BS if you ask me. I know where I get CI done it’d be plugged and in the man cave...

Same place as Shockey ??

[LBM]

I have a Stone Ram in the man cave almost identical to this Ram in question. His right side Full curl past the nose. His left broomed heavy and well short. Compulsory inspection at 8.5 years. This Ram too i believe to be 8.5......but that said I too passed on many many Rams because of only counting 7. I wanted an obviously Legal Stone. The Anuli close to the skull can be very tough to see up close. Never mind out at distances 100 yards and more.
Tough call for the young hunter.......I think I would trust Giests opinion over many a many inspectors unfortunately. IMO the COs opinion shouldnt even come into play here. Hes not a biologist. Its not his specialty.
Many inspectors would say yes thats a 8.5 yr old Ram. Some not. Unfortunately.
yes the last year can be hard to see and if there as indicated in the one photo with the lines I would call it 8 1/2 as well but still would not shoot on age
according to the regs. That is one of the problems with different CIs passing it and others not, they have to be all on the same page and do it the way it
is writing for the regs. There has been cases were CIs have passed rams and then they were taken away later as well.
There is talk of sheep going back to be CIed by the wardens and not inspectors and possible the 8 year rule to be taken off
stones as well, and for them to be inspected in the region taken, and LEH but that may be more for big horn areas.