Last week the New York Times had a long form article by an award winning sports writer on Bighorn Sheep Hunting. The NYT is an unusual place to read an unbiased account of such a thing.
As with many other forms of hunting, sheep hunting is directly responsible for the conservation of the various wild sheep of North America. There are few wild sheep, even after years of conservation, all that’s needed to kill a carefully nurtured herd if for a sheep rancher to keep sheep in close proximity to their wild cousins and disease often decimates the wild herd down to extirpation. (no more)
Sheep habitat is in rocky steep terrain with good visibility. They like to see predators a long way off and have places where they can easily escape. There are many such places in the western United States, unfortunately it’s hard to establish new sheep populations in areas of good habitat. Sheep need to be captured and relocated. That’s where obsessed sheep hunters come in.
Every year thousands of people attempt to draw a coveted sheep tag, in my state they typically cost about $50. Every year of the hundreds of tags issued there are always one or two held back to put up for auction. People with enough money can cut the line if you will, by paying a lot of money they can draw a tag this year rather than unsuccessfully trying for a lifetime without getting a tag. Auction money goes to pay for sheep. Protection, habitat purchase, relocation, scientific study. Auction tags run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The protagonist in the story is a young hunting guide who concentrates on sheep. Towards the end of the story the writer tells of the young guides hunt that he did for himself, paying the fifty dollars or whatever the price is in Montana, the 23 days hunting, and the eventual pack out of meat and head. Amusingly enough it seems the young guide only preserved the bone and horn part of the head and has yet to clean and dry it prior to an inexpensive mount to put on the wall. The trophy itself is a poorly understood part of hunting.
As might be imagined the comments in the NYT are interesting. I’d recommend taking a look. They range from what might be expected here at DK, all the way to insightful statements by scientists.
I’ll reprint part of one I liked best.
I never hunted anything in my life (besides chasing frogs) - until I'd finished all the studies for a PhD in zoology; focus on animal behavior. Discovering at that point I really didn't want to be an academic; I moved to a farm in an area with a lot of game; deer to ducks. I started to hunt to feed my family; we were broke.
I was astonished at the intensity of the activity. And being trained in animal behavior- it was clear, this was hard-wired instinct. It is deeply embedded in many of us- hunting food for the tribe IS - exciting, fulfilling, pleasurable. It's evolution; not some weird desire to kill things. Those who had these instincts were the ones who successfully fed their families- and survived. The instincts are still there- and (ask any hunter) as deep and intense as sex is. Embedded.
It’s a long read, but well worth the effort, and I’d suggest doing so before commenting so that comments are directed at issues discussed in the story.