Newsletter 12 - December 2022

We live in the only state in the country with a wild population of Dall sheep – a species highly coveted by hunters from across the world – and the way we  have managed those sheep in many areas was to allow unlimited hunting of mature rams by both resident and nonresident sheep hunters, require that most all nonresident sheep hunters hire a licensed big game guide to the tune of $20,000+, and placed no limits on the number of guides.

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What could go wrong?

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That’s how Alaska continues to manage our declining sheep populations on state lands in the central and western Alaska Range in Game Management Units 20A and 19C, where nonresident guided sheep hunters have consistently harvested 60-80 percent of legal rams annually. In 2022 nonresident guided sheep hunters took 90 percent of the sheep harvest in Unit 19C. 

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The Alaska Department of Fish & Game (Department) says the reason it’s okay, sustainability wise, to allow unlimited Dall sheep hunting on limited Dall sheep populations, is because Full-Curl (FC) harvest management – only full-curl rams or rams 8 years or older can be harvested – is biologically sustainable under all conditions. Dall rams with full-curl horns or those 8 years or older are known to be near the end of their life cycle, thus the harvest of mature rams is more compensatory mortality than additive mortality. Data also shows that not all the legal rams are harvested out of a population every year, thus there is always a “harvestable surplus” of legal rams.

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The Board of Game has continued to justify the allowance of unlimited nonresident sheep hunting in certain areas based on the Department position that the FC harvest strategy is indeed sustainable. Everything else – the known conflicts in the field between guides, their clients, and resident sheep hunters, guides essentially locking up areas, guide on guide conflicts, and the vast majority of the annual sheep harvest in these areas continually going to nonresident guided hunters – is justified on the basis that nonresident dollars from hunting license and tag sales are needed to help fund the Department, and that guides need to make a living. 

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But with our Dall sheep populations now in a severe decline statewide – the declines are mostly weather related, caused by climate change, and are happening across the state in areas where sheep hunting is prohibited, and in draw and general hunting areas – things are coming to a head. Many, including at least one Board of Game member, are questioning whether the FC harvest strategy really is sustainable under all conditions. 

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The Federal Subsistence Board wasn’t buying the Department’s position that unlimited sheep hunting under FC harvest management was always sustainable, when just prior to the fall 2022 sheep hunting season, due to sheep conservation concerns, they closed all sheep hunting for everyone in parts of the central Brooks Range for two years in areas where the Board of Game continued to allow unlimited sheep hunting opportunities for all. The key reason they questioned the sustainability of FC harvest management was based on the Department itself contradicting its validity when in 2015 they recommended a complete sheep hunting closure in Unit 23 – Unit 23 is still closed to all sheep hunting – and in 2008 recommended that Units 13D/14A in the Chugach go to draw only hunts with a limited allocation for everyone. These were areas where unlimited sheep hunting had been allowed based on the ostensible sustainability of FC harvest management…until the Department suddenly had sheep conservation concerns.

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And now, the Board of Game itself – after over a decade of complaints and proposals (all voted down!) from resident sheep hunters and RHAK expressing sheep conservation concerns and fears that resident sheep hunters would lose opportunity if unlimited nonresident opportunity continued – has submitted a Board-generated proposal to completely close Unit 19C in the western Alaska range to all sheep hunting for five years! 

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The audacity of the Board of Game now proposing this is still hard to comprehend. And that’s further compounded by the fact that the Board of Game rejected an Agenda Change Request proposal from RHAK – expressing conservation concerns for sheep in 19C and asking to limit nonresident sheep hunters there to draw only permits with a limited allocation – stating that our request did not meet the criteria for “sheep conservation concerns” at the same meeting they voted to propose a complete sheep hunting closure in Unit 19C based on “sheep conservation concerns!”

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The result of this overtly hypocritical decision by the Board of Game is that next March the public will only be able to weigh in on whether to support or oppose a complete sheep hunting closure in 19C. The RHAK proposal that unquestionably met the criteria for acceptance and offered an alternative that would limit nonresident sheep hunters in 19C as a first step, will purposely not be before the public. 

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So where do we go from here? RHAK has real conservation concerns for our sheep populations, but there’s little in the state’s toolbox to turn things around. We can’t change the weather, which is and will continue to be the main factor in sheep declines, nor can we control avalanches and drownings. It’s possible to do predator control to benefit sheep in specific areas, but the cost is high and it doesn’t seem there would be efficacy in such a program when the main predator is the federally protected Golden Eagle. 

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The one thing we can control is the number of hunters. While it’s true there is always a harvestable surplus of legal rams after each hunting season, that number of legal rams each fall has greatly diminished to the point we are seeing unacceptable levels of sub-legal harvests (by guided and unguided hunters) and it just isn’t prudent to continue to allow unlimited nonresident sheep hunting opportunity anywhere it is currently granted. 

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At some point, RHAK may support some type of limits on resident sheep hunters if things don’t improve. But we cannot support any new limits or restrictions on resident sheep hunters if nonresident sheep hunting isn’t strictly limited or restricted first.