Talked to the biologist out there and was very surprised at his response. His take was that the unit should be cleared out and restarted because domestic sheep and goats had come in contact with the wild sheep and possibly infected by pneumonia. It has been a long time since any sheep counts occurred and the population is totally an estimate.
Kind of strange that the neighboring unit is doing very well and 38 is tanked.
The sheep in 38 are impacted by sheep and goats on private land. Unfortunately bighorns just cannot live in proximity to domestic sheep and goats.
I would really love to see another archery sheep hunt (or 10) in late seasons. Seeps silly to keep increasing rifle sheep hunts and decreasing archery hunts in this state. Seems especially silly to have most of the archery seasons in tougher times of year to hunt them or to have any rifle tags in the rut.
