Has anyone heard anything from that AGMAG meeting last night?

There are a lot of rumors floating around. I heard they have abandoned the idea of shortening the season and are talking about full curl from the Brazeau to the Bow and increased wait times to 3 years between Ram kills. I haven't seen anything official, so this could all be BS.

Has anyone else heard anything?

The proposed shortened season has NOT been abandoned.

AF&W has demanded that AGMAG members choose from one of two options, this is what I heard they are.

A) Shortening of seasons province wide by 10 days. Plus three year wait after killing a ram

or,

B) Full curl in SMAs 1-4 (south of Brazeau- an addition of 21 MWUs to the full curl designation!


I believe that most AGMAG members are continueing with their original position, and choosing option C) No Change at this time.




Let's review where this began. AF&W began this process with a desire to put a limited entry draw season for ALL of Alberta.
Their Data concluded that harvest rams are getting smaller and OLDER.
Their Data showed that there was a concern with low number of legal rams in SMA 2 and 4B and 4C. All other areas have stable to increasing ram populations.

Now AF&W is claiming that too many Young rams are being harvested. Huh?

Harvested ram ages are increasing, but now too many young rams are being taken, and population levels are good in 7 of 10 SMAs.


Lets focus working on the areas that may have a problem. Where a problem is proven, it should be dealt with a comprehensive plan  (habitat, ALL Mortality factors; predators, treaty harvest, poaching, licenced hunting)  that will look after the species for the long term, not introduce widesweaping changes through Licenced hunter management as an easy way out a systemic issue.


 

AF&GA Conference coming up in several days in RedDeer and they usually talk about this sort of thing during the "wildlife update" Fish & Wildlife do.

The Provincial Hunting Chair will probably have something to say about it as well.

Apparently there WILL be a change for this upcoming season, what that change will be remains to be known. It will likely be a shortened season and possibly extended wait periods. They want to do this for 2-3 years then go to a draw or full-curl. I'm sure the gov will lean more towards a draw since it would be quite a bit easier for them to manage. It will be very sad day for Sheep hunting in Alberta if/when they go to a draw. With a draw we'll be lucky to get one tag in our lifetimes.

A draw will also greatly benefit the outfitters over going to full-curl as it will greatly reduce the competition for them and still allow them to kill small squeaker Rams every year.

I agree with everything is this post.  The only way a draw might sort of work is, if drawn, they make it mandatory to purchase the tag, and raise the price of that tag to level that will weed out those that are less than serious about sheep hunting (sorry to those that might not be able to afford it, life's tough).  The one thing you can definately count on is that if the words "sheep" and "draw" are in the same sentence, this government will find some way to screw it up completly, and probably in ways that noone has even thought of yet.  They always have in the past.

The outfitter thing.....absolutely correct, and it's enough to tun my guts.

Heard they just captured 20 Cadomin sheep and shipped them to Nevada. For the life of me I do not understand that. Why not relocate them to another part of Alberta?

I would imagine that the decision on where they go is made by whoever is paying for the program.

What? I don't understand your response.

What I meant was, if the Nevada gov't is paying for it?, they'll probably want to ship them to Nevada.  Or if the WSF is paying for it then they would be the one's deciding where they go.  I really have no idea exactly how these programs work, or who is paying for this one.  Maybe more than one group, I have no idea.  There might be someone on here more knowlegable than me that could shed some light on it? I would think that if an Alberta-based organization, be it the Alberta government , or someone else, was paying for it, then they probably would end up somewhere in Alberta.

Dang why can't we use these sheep in Alberta. Ship them a few wolfs instead. LOL

I just don't understand it at all.   

I just want to clarify something here.  In NO way am I in favor of a province wide draw for sheep at this time, and I am NOT "pushing" for it.  With that said, the increased levy was only a suggestion that might keep some of the "casual" sheep hunters from jamming up the system (and hopefully keep wait times on tags lower), in the event that we have a draw imposed on us. 

Not really sure that I agree with your statement about it dividing hunters though.  Of the tens of thousands of people buying hunting licenses in Alberta every year, less than 2500 buy a general sheep tag (I call them the "serious" sheep hunters).  My point was that if you could keep it down to those 2500 entering the draw (instead of every guy with a WIN throwing his name in the hat because it only costs 4 bucks), then a draw might work.  Sheep hunting is, by nature, an expensive proposition to begin with.  If you can already afford to go sheep hunting (I'm talking about the "serious" guys here), chances are that you can also afford a more expensive tag too.  Seems to me that it's already somewhat divided.  Just my thoughts.

Keep a general tag but if a sheep hits the ground there should be a trophy fee.  Why should a resource be worth nothing to the people of Alberta?

I am a serious sheep hunter according to you Dave and I do not agree with any levy or paying way more for a tag. I do agree with 340 as you would be dividing it in to a rich mans tag. That is the problem with hunting everybody wants to pay for this an that.  Soon we will be just like the states and have to pay $10,000 a year to be able to hunt a deer on one peice of just ok property.  IMO it has to stay fair and equal. I do disagree with everybodys kid and wife applying for a tag they will never hunt such as sheep and goat tags. This is were we need to figure out a way to change thi with out jacking prices through the roof.  Also sheep hunting is no more $$$ than any other hunting IMO.  I hunt the same when I am hunting deer or elk.  Heck I even use Mose of my gear that I use when sheep hunting. 

We do agree on everything else though. I just wish they would leave it alone or just make it full curl with the mature rule like BC has were you can shoot a ram if you can count 8 year horn rings.

Ok, I'll say it one more time.  I'm not in favor of higher fees, levy's or a draw.  I was only commenting hypothetically that, IF a draw were to be implemented, how might it be managed in such a way that waiting periods between holding a tag would be reasonable.  That's all.  Personally, if I had to pay a little more (and again, I'm speaking if a draw were hypotheitcally implemented, so please try to keep that in mind) to hunt sheep somewhat regularly, I'd be willing to do that rather than wait 30+ years for another tag.  I guess I'm just looking at the lessor of two evils.  And I wouldn't equate raising the price of a tag to a level that weeds out some of the "casual" (casuals being those that never had an interest in hunting sheep until it goes on draw, along with the wives, girlfriends ect. that you mentioned earlier) with turning it into a "rich man's tag".  We all have to pay for everything in life, why should the privilege of hunting sheep be any different?
Also, if your sheep hunting costs you the same amount as hunting deer around home, then we must have very different hunting styles.  Mind you, I killed my ram a very long ways from the road.