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James Liautaud, come hunting

By Bob Speirs, Black Hills Pioneer Apr 11, 2019



A local paper ran a very short letter to the editor from a gentleman from Key Largo, Florida.

James Liautaud claimed that the world record bighorn sheep that was taken last fall in the Badlands had caught his attention.

Mr. Liautaud is a successful business man and a self-made billionaire. His philanthropy is well documented with numerous donations of millions of dollars to organizations that he supports.


Hunting is one of his favorite pastimes.

This is just the type of sportsman that the governor was hoping to attract when she proposed expanding the boundaries of our auction tag for bighorns in South Dakota.

Each year bidding is held on a single license. The high bidder gets to hunt a sheep, and the state gets a large cash infusion targeted for sheep research and expansion.

For several years, the license has sold for more than $80,000. In 2014, it was estimated that $40,000 was enough to import 24 bighorn sheep from Canada and those animals were used to begin a new herd near Deadwood.

Mr. Liautaud went on to estimate that his own foundation would have bid nearly a million dollars for the opportunity to hunt for a ram here in South Dakota that might be even bigger that the last world record.

In order to reach that amount of money at an auction, there normally needs to be at least two bidders competing. Very few, no matter how charitable, are willing to bid themselves higher if there is another auction coming up that has even more sheep tags available.

The million-dollar mark would gather much attention as it would nearly double the record for money ever spent on a hunting license.

Some sportsmen in western South Dakota objected to the governor backed proposal. It would have continued to allocate the same historical amount of money that had been generated from the pool, but wanted any funds bid in excess to be used for jumpstarting the state’s sagging pheasant population.


For wishful resident big horn hunters, all monies earned from the auction should be fully invested in sheep reintroduction and research to end the flu epidemics that dramatically reduces our herds at regular intervals.

Mathematically inclined hunters looked at our state’s previous investments, divide that number into the hypothetical million-dollar resource, and saw hundreds of additional sheep living in the Hills and Badlands.

The governor’s office looks through a much broader lens. Pheasant hunters spend over 130 million dollars every year.

While bighorn sheep have prettier eyes and are much harder to find, pheasants are South Dakota’s bread and butter.

While three sheep hunters spread their economic impact across the state each year and Mr. Liautaud’s donation would be a very welcome contribution, the 200,000 hunters who chase cackling roosters each year strikes closer to home for Governor Noem.

This is a personal invitation for the Jimmy John’s founder to bank that sheep check and hold it till next year.

After negotiations between the Wild Sheep Foundation and the state Game and Fish are finalized, I’m sure South Dakotans will support your effort.

If you need a second to show up and bid that final total to those stratospheric heights, I known a few well-heeled gentlemen who have the assets available to run you up.


I’d push those bids myself just to see the look on my wife’s face, but I might need you to spot me a bank roll. I understand that wives are rarely understanding when it comes to a hunter’s true altruistic efforts. I’ve come home from auctions twice with bear and buffalo hunts that had to be swiftly transferred into my children’s names that I might avoid damaging looks and painful conversations of possible declines in my personal judgement.

Those trips with my kids are still some of my favorite memories and I’d like your South Dakota sheep hunt to be equally fruitful.

The Speirs family has owned and operated Crow Creek Wildlife Management Service since 1996.

with any luck we can get some of these auctions up to 5-6 million then the millionaires can see how it feels.

It does not mention the fact that the Custer State Park herd was decimated by pneumonia.

The wonderful sheep that were transplanted by Deadwood lost 80-90% of it's population to pneumonia already.

The GFP wants to have six units.
Badlands
Elk Mountain
Spring Creek
Deadwood
Custer State Park
Jewel cave west of Custer

The Badlands area has always grown big sheep. Along with the new world record, they have a couple of pick ups that were huge also.

I think it is throwing good money after bad. There used to be good herd by Hill City, gone.

Get a good herd going and pneumonia wipes them out.

Unless these states get creative and use the money generated by these auction and raffle tags and buying the grazing leases from people running domestic sheep and goats in areas where there are bighorns

Jimmy John donates a lot of money in multiple states every year

Yep, sheep in general area will pass that stuff on regular basis
Ban those things
Aussies got plenty of them things

quote:

Originally posted by boarkiller:
Yep, sheep in general area will pass that stuff on regular basis
Ban those things
Aussies got plenty of them things

Cant really ban them in a free country but you can buy em out and either raise the money to acquire the grazing leases or place restrictions on grazing leases but its difficult to tell a landowner what he can and can't do on his own property

bet they can and do if he shoots one of those sheep they are trying to sell for a million bucks.