For the first time in my life I had a good look at a big horn sheep in the wild this weekend traveling back from Kamloops going through the canyon on a scenic drive. What a animal!

We saw so many, and a few really big ones, it is amazing.

There is a herd on the salmo-creston pass, It is always a pleasure to see them. I have a picture of a very large ram at a feeding station for the sheep in stagleap park, on the pass. This ram was later shot illegally, and taken by the CO's. I think it ranked 10th in the world, but i'm not too sure about the exact details.



Kootenaymtnboy, My Dad tells stories of hunting the "China Wall" from 40 years ago.



Karl.

I went up to the Kamloops show last weekend. Stayed at the cabin so swung through Lytton - Lillooet - Pavilion on the way up. The herd outside of Fountain Valley has broken up into smaller herds. Coming backdown we went through Spences Bridge and saw the resident herd ( or atleast part of it ) but what was really neat was the herd had one full curl and on it's back sat a Magpie. I have only seen those little birds in pictures sitting on Rhinos in Africa. Pound for Pound this would of been like a Condor sitting on a Rhino.

Took a couple of picture but the zoom on my camera sucks. Neat to see although.

KTK

I have a picture of a magpie sitting on the back of a ram at Spences Bridge. I also have a picture of a small bird perched on the velvet antlers of a huge bull elk.

I first went to the "China Wall" about then as I joined the B.C.F.S in '65 at Fernie. I remember walking into the old F.S. office in the courthouse, all eager and telling all the old guys how I wanted to hunt the East Kootenays; the replies slowly came back, ...son, you're 20 years too late...

I can just remember guys leaving Nelson after work in the '50s and coming home with an enormous bull Elk, three bucks and a bear, all on a weekend hunt with a two-wheel drive pickup and three guys...it's all gone now, with development, population increase and lack of government concern.

I lived in Sparwood for 15 years. I never hunted China Wall for sheep. I don't like lining up behind crowds of people. As the forester that managed that private land (amazing how many people still don't know it's privately owned - albeit by the Nature Conservancy of Canada since '94) for most of the last 10 years, I did get to spend a lot of time there.

As a place for recreation, however, I love it. If you can stand the ticks its a great place to pick up sheds too.

Cheers,
Canuck

Yup, many parts of our province are getting crowded, I started hunting when there were only about 1.25 million people in the whole place. I actually prefer to hunt the West Kootenay as it is far less crowded and I seldom see other hunters after early October when the rains start.

I have a Turkey LEH for this month and am just now getting packed for 10 days in the old North Face VZ-24 up behind Christina Lake. I hear rumours that there may be an "open season" next year, probably around Creston, I sure hope so.

Moved to Lillooet in the 80's and there was no goat hunting behind the mill near the dam even then so it must have been way before then that the guy was shooting them. Always tons of goats though. Keep an eye out for the sheep we transplanted to there in the early 90's above the railway along the lake and behind the mill.

If you guys think the hunting in the mountains of BC is crowded you should try hunting sheep in the Alberta mountains. One string of mountains on the east slope and half of that is parks and reserves where no hunting is allowed. Every sheep hunter in Alberta is concentrated in these limited areas. I tried it a few times when I first moved here and found it was way to busy for me, I'm not interested in the foot races that happen when a poor ram does poke his head out of the timber. I guess I could sit around the mine boundary at Cadomin waiting with the other hordes of hunters who wait there for a ram to cross the boundary or sit on the Park boundarys hoping one comes out of the park. Not for me thanks. Although there are less hunters than there were 2 decades ago the remaining ones have more time and means of mobility to get to the remote areas and they do get more crowded than they used to. I'll just stick to the deer and elk hunting lower down where there is hardly any hunting pressure.

I can count on one hand the number of people I have run into while hhunting sheep in Alberta. Guess I'm keeping my mouth shut!

Chuck

I was thinking of the excessive bag limits when I wrote my last post and of the lack of proper enforcement and so forth which continues to this day. No government we have had in B.C. since Confederation has ever cared one iota more about the environment in any sense than they were forced to, by a very few concerned and committed people.

I first met Suzuki in 1970, when friends of mine invited me to a meeting of biology professors at Selkirk College at Castlegar, B.C. in order to meet him and discuss their/my environmental activities with the "great man". I was a young supervisor with the B.C.F.S. and had been active in conservation since I was 14, in 1960. I was eager to meet Dr. Suzuki and when I did, I was shocked.

This man was one of the most virulent, arrogant racists I have ever met and he actually made mocking remarks about those of us then active in wilderness conservation, water pollution abatement and so forth. He jumped on the environmental bandwagon in the mid-'70s when he and his fellow commies realized that this was a way to get power, influence and wealth--all of which he now has, in abundance!

Suzuki is a self-aggrandizing, self-pitying, arrogant, pathetic, LITTLE man who is a laughingstock among many professional biologists, foresters and psychologists I know and have known for his lack of scientific objectivity and his posturing. He is an excellent example of someone whose reach exceeds his grasp--except where money is concerned, his daughter Tannis is exactly the same.

Paul Watson is part of the reason why many of us who founded the post-war environmental movement-as distinct from, but allied to, the game conservation movement-do not refer to ourselves as "environmentalists"; he is quite simply scum, period.

With serious management, we could quite easily have more available big game in B.C. for resident hunters and non-residents, alike. BUT, as long as we have the attitude that this can be done for free, that some have more rights than others based on race or that a large human population and it's attendant development are goals more important than wildlife/fish habitat and population levels, it will not happen.

Given the current popular attitudes concerning hunting/wildlife in B.C., I doubt that we will ever see the kind of management needed; In fact, we will very probably see increasing restrictions on hunting for everyone, except the Aborigines, as this is one of the ways that their specious and racist landclaims will be settled.

Kootenay, you forgot the most important word in your description of suzuki. LIAR. He's a pathelogical liar who will say anything to line his pockets.

Aw c'mon Chuck, you can tell me. I haven't been here long enough to find one of those few spots. Well, maybe one that might have some promise but I'll have to find a boat to get me up there, then two days of hiking to get to the spot.

I completely agree, there are people involved in the over-all environmental movement whom I have known for years and strongly disagree with; most of these same people I deeply respect. The one that comes to mind is Wayne McCrory, the top bear biologist alive, IMO. I question his adamant stand against Grizzly hunting, but, I have enormous respect for his real bear knowledge and his bush experience.

The real problem with the charlatans like Dr. Suzuki is that they promote conflict and strife between hunters/anglers and wilderness conservationists. In a world of finite resources and 6.3 billion people, we need a united front to fight for a clean, ecologically diverse and productive environment for all.

I think that, slowly, as the memories of the '60s fade and people begin to wake up to the enormous con-job that was foisted on us by the Kennedys, Trudeau, Castro, Mao and all their little acolytes such as Dr. S.; we might have a chance to re-build the conservation movement along realistic and cooperative lines. But, it isn't going to be easy to convince people that Bighorn Sheep range is more important then a dam, oil well site or mine, in Alberta or B.C.

And then there is the tree planters that dump their flats of trees in the bush without planting them so they will get payed for planting them. These are some of the same people who I've seen protesting logging. Yes these were live healthy seedlings numbering in the thousands at various silviculture sites that I've machine prepped for planting after logging when I was a machine operator for a year or two. Forestry was made aware but nothing ever came of it.