Boone and Crockett

Mountains and Mystery: A BIG Big Horn Sheep

By Hal Herring, 5-02-06

One of the greatest and most rare qualities of living in a place where the endeavors of mankind do not hold sway over every square mile of country is the very real presence of mystery and the unknown. In a place like the Bitterroot Valley, a person can look up from the fantastic level of distraction of Highway 93 and see recesses in the mountains where none has set foot in years; perhaps there are perched valleys and black timber northslopes that have never known the track of a man, where a fisher hunts red squirrels its whole life with no awareness of the changes happening in the valley below. Look into the mountains, and you are looking into a place where a great mystery is unfolding, every second, that has absolutely nothing to do with you or anybody you know or ever will know. It is the other. If a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, it makes the same noise as if you were right there under it.

When I first learned of the finding of the bighorn sheep ram whose skull is shown in these pictures, this is what it brought to mind. Out there, things are happening, things that we will never see or know of, unless by chance. Darwin Zito, a hunter and outdoorsman from Hamilton, was horn hunting down near Sula Peak when he found the dead ram, apparently killed by a snag falling. There are lots of snags there, hundreds of thousands of them left over from the fires of 2000. Zito, who works at Hamilton’s Big Sky Autobody when he is not in the mountains, told it this way.

"I happened to look up, watching some does going across the slope there, and I saw a four point muley horn laying up there. I picked that up, and followed the ridge out on a game trail, and down below was a bunch of downed trees from the burn. Under one of them you could see this huge ram head, with one horn buried six inches in the dirt. The tree had fallen the length of his back, had fallen on him and looked like it must have broke his neck."

Zito went down to the Sula Store later and called game wardens to see what to do. Because the bighorn sheep skulls and horns are so valuable to collectors, lending a huge incentive to poachers to kill and sell them, it is illegal to possess them unless you have a hunting license for the animal (a New Mexico bighorn ram license was recently auctioned for $185,000, and Montana, which is known as one of the best destination for bighorn trophy hunting in the U.S., spends huge amounts of money to ensure they survive in huntable numbers. Auctions of tags in Montana have brought in $2,363,000 (as of 2001) much of which was used to purchase bighorn sheep winter range that also serves the needs of other wildlife.)

Zito said he told wardens they could go back up with him and he'd show them where it was, "but they said just go bring it down. It’s a massive thing, must weigh twenty-five pounds or more."

Zito brought the skull down and turned it over to wardens. Bitterroot warden Joe Jaquith said that they do not yet have an official Boone and Crockett score for the ram yet, but hoped to get it scored very soon. The skull will be cleaned and turned into what is called European mount -- just skull and horns. "It will end up being displayed in the Sula school, or someplace like that," Jaquith said.
[End of article]

so they didn't let Zito keep it?

Cathie,
No, they don't let anybody keep them, unless you have the tag to hunt and then possess them. It seems kind of harsh, but it's a policy designed to keep a lid on the market for wildlife, a market that has a pretty ugly history all over the world.
One of the most interesting aspects of the bighorn sheep recovery in this part of the Bitterroot was the legal battle that ensued when, in 1992, the new owners of the Shining Mountain Ranch in Sula changed their grazing use of the state forest from cattle--which had been on there for generations--to domestic sheep--
which they had decided would be helpful in controlling spotted knapweed. The only problem was, the bighorn sheep that were using the Sula state forest are susceptible to a variety of diseases (a type of deadly pnuemonia among others) carried by domestic sheep, and the sheep that the new owners-- George Madden from Hawaii, a brother of TV personality John Madden--
had been brought in without being inspected by anyone.

The Ravalli County Fish and Wildlife Association and a host of other wildllife groups (Skyline Sportsmen's ASsoc among others)brought a lawsuit against the state, saying that Madden had no right to arbitrarily change his grazing lease from cattle to domestic sheep, and that the state had no right to allow it, given the potential decimation of a herd of bighorns that citizens had spent a lot of money to recover.
The battle was amazing--Madden rallied the woolgrowers and others, and there was a lot of local fury on the different sides. The case went to the Montana Supreme Court, where a monumental judgement was handed down by Judge Leapheart--that not only did the state have no right to let Madden run his domestic sheep, that in essence, the survival and recovery of bighorn sheep and other wildlife were one of the uses of state lands, on a par with grazing or timber harvest. It was a pivotal case, and one worth looking into for anyone concerned with Montana's public lands and wildlife and how it interacts, in an overwhelmingly positive way, with the economy, and how difficult it can be to strike a balance between the rights of private lease holders on public lands with the public rights on those lands. Both rights echo way out into the larger community, economically speaking and in almost every other way, from aesthetics to watershed health to non-hunting recreation (and of course these, too, are interrelated).


Many people would also say that it defines how an angry take no prisoners approach by a leaseholder on public land is liable to lead to consequences that
the angry party will regret. Madden left the Bitterroot after the Supreme Court decision.

They didn't let Zito keep it because poaching big horn sheep has become a serious, serious problem. A problem here in Wyoming is that poachers will discover a large ram, kill it, leave it in place, and allow nature to take its course in decomposing the carcass. The poacher then returns to the site later, collects the skull, and claims he had merely found it. No one can prove any different.

One doesn't have to have a B&C;score on this particular head to know it's a very good one and would bring big bucks on the open market.

This is an example of the perversity and perfidy of allowing markets for wildlife to flourish, either legally or illegally.

Thanks, Robert.
I don't want to work you for information that I ought to collect myself, but do the hunters who take bighorns legally have the right to sell them?

Hal

Hal

Unfortunately, yes. Horns--acquired either through hunting or pickup--must be plugged by G&F;but the skull is the property of the hunter to do with as he/she wishes. In my view Wyoming's law is far too lax.

The relevant statute is W.S. 23-3-117. It reads "A licensee who harvests a bighorn sheep or any person who picks up or removes horns from any bighorn sheep ...shall present the horns at a regional office of the [G&F;] department during normal business hours to be registered in accordance with department rules and regulations. The horns shall be presented ...with fifteen (15) days after taking the horns into possession. The departmant may require substantive proof from unlicensed individuals that the horns were legally acquired. Failure to provide such proof may result in confiscation of the horns ..."

Note there is no restriction on sale. I remember when this was passed, and the original bill, sponsored by the G&F;Commission, was much more restrictive on the right of sale in order to deal with the poaching problem I mentioned in my previous post, but it was considered a violation of hunters' personal property rights. There was the usual whining from various legislators about restricting the hunter's rights to do with his legally taken wildlife whatever he wanted, and there was no recognition of the real problem of poaching, which was really bothering both G&F;and hunters. As I said before, it is impossible to prove that a skull presented for plugging that was picked up is the product of poaching in the absence of positive evidence to the contrary. Poachers certainly know that, and that's the reason for adopting this tactic.

I myself have found nice heads in the backcountry; I move and hide them, just in case.

Just another example of how little the Wyoming legislature really cares about the State's wildlife.

As I recall, we tried the same year to restrict the right of hunters to sell black bear gall bladders or paws, which bring quite a price on the Asian market, and we heard the same property rights nonsense from legislators, and the bill went nowhere.

Just another reason I am sick and tired of this property rights nonsense. Wildlife is our common propery, and our common heritage, and any commercialization of that resource degrades and damages the commons that belongs to all of us.

May I suggest a story on the "North American Model of Wildlife Management" that Val Geist and Jim Posewitz have been so eloquent about?

Best,
Robert

Could the horns not have been tagged in some manner by G&F;to allow him to keep them? I suppose they wanted them though too, they look like a pretty remarkable set of horns.
As for Wyoming, they seem to be pretty aggressive dealing with wildlife law breakers, they manage to keep hunters on their side and get a lot of reports from them too.
Private property rights are extremely important and if we start taking away rights of Americans for whatever someone deems a good reason we are in big trouble as a country.

I can't speak for the law in Montana. Had the horns Hal describes been found in Wyoming, aside from the requirement that they be registered and plugged, Mr.Zito could have kept the horns.

The most important event in the history of wildlife conservation in North America was shutting down markets in wildlife parts. The existence or re-emergeance of any market represents a tremendous threat to wildlife. Poaching for the market is certainly a threat to big game animals, especially bighorn sheep.

By law wildlife are considered the common property of the people of a state. Historically, living wildlife have been considered the "property of no one, and possession if the beginning of ownership," as Mr. Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes once wrote in 1920. Private property rights in wildlife are restricted and properly so restricted. There are no absolute property rights to wildlife.

The privatization of wildlife represents theft of a common heritage.

Poaching is wrong for any animal, but I fail to see what that has to do with private property rights. Ranchers are the source fo feed and water for countless animals.

Dear Hal,

I just wanted to let you know that your articles are great. I googled Dick Dasen after reading about him in the economist, and found your article on him to be Pulitzer type writing. I like in NY, and I've never even been to Montana (although I have family around there) but I feel like I know the area so much better after reading that Article. I also know what my cousins out around the area (Oregon, South Dakota) have to go through every day with the Struggle of Meth. I'm going to go to Journalism school and I'm hoping I can turn out articles like the Dasen one in the future. Great work!

I used to go to Shining Mountain Ranch in the early late 1970's when Bill Mitchell was director and he ran it so well, and was so into the land and I loved that area so much! I called it GETTING THE HIGH IN THE BIG SKY COUNTRY! It's a great area. Sorry to hear there are problems with sheep now! I remember wild horses roaming around from the days of Chief Joseph and his Nez Perces! I loved that camp! I have have happy memories! Long live those memories of getting the high in montana! You are lucky to live there. So many of my friends trekked back and found out some Hawaian guy owned it, then we all lost touch! How is it? Love it always. Shining Mountain Ranch where Dreams Do Come True!

Hey, I found the remains of a big horn ram outside of Cody near Wapiti. It was 20 years ago. I was visiting my uncle and went on a hike every other day. I saved a special mountain ridge for my birthday. That is when I found the ram remains and then got lost, was on the mountain most of the night. Finally made it back with my special find. I had to take it to the game warden and he put a marking pin in it and had me show him where I found it. I never realized how valuable it was. It is priceless to me because of the memory and that the ram is my birth sign.

i found a bighorn sheep cougar kill a few years ago. the horns and skull where in good condition, not knowing the law i took them home as a souvinier, later i found out that i could get cited for it, i put them up and forgot about them, not bragging about them and hoping they would just be forgotten. just the other day i had two state troopers stopped by knowing i had them,(someone must have told the wrong person), i was cited for the possesion and know face a court appearance. Now i might face a poaching for they might think i shot it and returned to get. this is not true at all. What could be the worse that could happen and what actions should i take?