Is It Ok For Adf&G To “Blow Off” Its Earlier Dall Sheep Research?
( posted Apr 12, 2008 )

Alaska FNAWS leadership, particularly Chapter President, Wayne Heimer (who may be biased because his life’s work, discovering “full-curl” is being ignored) doesn't think so.

Heimer said, "Discarding work simply because it’s been criticized or because someone decides it is “controversial,” isn’t the way science usually works. Typically, disagreement calls for more research to settle questions raised by criticism. Traditional science doesn’t simply ignore a body of data, but asks more probing experimental questions to settle disagreements. Simply throwing out a data-based hypothesis for a theoretical one is a radical departure from established scientific methodology. When that happens, we just keep chasing one idea after another, and little real progress occurs."

In the "any-ram" controversy, it appears that ADF&G has rejected a significant amount of data-based Dall sheep biology, which many wild sheep specialists have found compelling, because the Department doesn’t want to deal with it. The Department apparently prefers to act on an untested theoretical prospect that it has intuitively embraced and sold to the Board of Game.

There’s some history which may be behind this choice. The Department, particularly the Anchorage Region, went "to the wall" to defeat the FNAWS-sponsored implementation of the "full-curl" regulation in 1989. It failed. Twelve years later ADF&G published a critique of the “full-curl” research work. The abstract of ADF&G’s attack on Heimer’s “full-curl” hypothesis and the subsequent rebuttal of ADF&G’s critique of its own work by a group of involved participants (including Val Geist) is available under our “SCIENCE” tab on this website. You can decide which argument you think is stronger.

ADF&G defined this exchange as a “(bad word here) contest” and used that conclusion to dismiss the “full-curl” biology and embrace the “any-ram” theory. That is, ADF&G apparently rejected the actual biological work supporting “full-curl” as the most data-driven way to maximize sustainable harvests from Dall sheep populations to practice “conservation genetics.” In short, ADF&G seems to have chosen, “IT IS CONTROVERSIAL.” As a reason to reject work most of the wild sheep community thinks supported a good strategy for Alaska’s existing sheep harvest management program.

Paradoxically, ADF&G embraced much more controversial work in justifying its "any-ram" change for the Chugach Mountains. If you click on "Any-Ram Controversy" under the "SCIENCE" tab on this website, you will find three papers.

The first is a non-technical article called "Dall Sheep Management in the Chugach Mountains” used by permission from the "Sportsmen's Voice” magazine. At the very beginning, it shows ADF&G "hung its hat" on a highly controversial article suggesting hunting is wrecking the gene pool in wild sheep. We don't know if ADF&G knew how controversial this article was when they chose to “hang their hat” on it. The controversial nature of this article was certainly no secret in the wild sheep management or research worlds.

In addition to using this controversial article to justify “any-ram,” ADF&G offered this fairly chilling statement, “The new drawing hunts in the Chugachs are just the first step in reviewing and evaluating sheep management strategies.” We infer this means ADF&G thinks permits and “any-ram” seasons are the coming thing for more of Alaska than just the Chugach Mountains. Also, it looks like this statement is a bit misleading. Apparently, it is the second step. The first was setting aside everything that ADF&G has learned about sheep management over the years. Another ADF&G statement in that article, “. . .sheep hunting is starting to decline. . .many hunters, residents in particular, have already hung up their rifles.” was equally disturbing to FNAWS. Why this doesn’t disturb the Department is even more disturbing to FNAWS.

The next article under this “tab” ("Any-ram #1"), was compiled and edited by Alaska FNAWS president and long-term Dall sheep biologist, W. Heimer. It contains rebuttals from recognized wild sheep scientists to the controversial article embraced by ADF&G. The authors are Mike and Margaret Frisina (Montana and China), Eric Rominger (New Mexico), Valerius Geist (the father of modern sheep biology), Heimer (Alaska) and R. Lee (Arizona, Mexico, and National FNAWS). These recognized scientists pointed to weaknesses in the technical article ADF&G used to justify the Chugach program at the first of its article in “The Sportsmen’s Voice.” critiquing the original article ADF&G.

Just so you can judge the extent of the controversy ADF&G seemingly overlooked, we are including another document. This article, by M. Festa-Bianchet and other authors of the paper which started this controversy, is called "Any-ram #2."

If you’ve stuck with this to the end, you’ll see “any-ram” is in much greater dispute than “full-curl.” As a result, we can’t understand why it makes sense for ADF&G to simply dismiss the biology upon which “full-curl” is based (and its proven results) because they defined it as a “(bad word here) contest.” There has to be a better reason.

In addition to having a tradition of insisting on the best use of what we think we know (see the Working Hypothesis paper under "SCIENCE"), FNAWS has a tradition of working with ADF&G. That cooperation has been primarily in the form of FNAWS supporting projects with dollars we've generated in one way or another. Some of these produced immediate benefit to sheep and sheep hunting, some haven't yet. We want to think that ADF&G and FNAWS both want to see robust sheep populations that can support lots of satisfactory sheep hunting and harvest. However, until we can begin to come to some agreement on "how to get there," we'll have to continue to focus on resolution of our basic differences, which now seem to be in our approach to scientific management. We've had some good discussions, but obviously more are needed. Perhaps things will move more quickly when the Anchorage Region of ADF&G, which has been most at odds with FNAWS, brings on the biologist they are hiring to work specifically on their sheep problems. We'll be ready.