“Any-ram” Fact Sheet
by Wayne E. Heimer, Dall Sheep Biologist,
National FNAWS Board member, and Alaska FNAWS Chapter President.
Feb. 28, 2008

• There is a biological reason we’ve harvested Dall rams at full curl for the last 18 years. It’s so we can safely maximize harvest and hunting opportunity. Dall sheep lamb production and ram survival to harvestable age are highest when we have older rams in the populations.
  
  
• Influential ADF&G biologists and leaders have chosen to ignore ADF&G’s own studies demonstrating that full curl ram harvests allow the maximum sustainable harvest of Dall sheep. Instead, ADF&G has offered theoretical “genetic” reasons to reduce hunting, but have no data to back them up.
  
  
• In 2007, ADF&G defined a crowding problem in the Chugach Mountains, and wanted to increase the “quality of hunting” there. Consequently, ADF&G put most of the Chugach on permit. An “any-ram” bag limit to “protect genetics” came along with this proposal.
  
  
• ADF&G has no scientific reason for the “any-ram” bag limit. “Any-ram” is based on some ADF&G biologist’s subjective feelings about Dall sheep breeding behavior and “genetics” as well as personal feelings about how sheep hunting “should be.” Management should be based on scientific data. ADF&G biologists have no data justifying “any ram,” just personal theoretical impressions.
  
  
• The ADF&G position is that full curl rams do virtually all of the breeding. This is wrong.
  
  
• ”Any-ram” is a bighorn regulation imported from “outside” where conditions aren’t like Alaska. Bighorn populations where “any-ram” works are all small, often isolated, won’t ever be large, and all hunting is tightly controlled by permits. To make “any ram” biologically safe, all harvest must be controlled by permits. No open hunting can be allowed.
  
  
• ADF&G got the Board of Game to accept the “any ram” legal definition to “fix” a theoretical genetic problem based on a misunderstanding of Dall sheep breeding biology and genetics. There are no relevant data suggesting this problem actually exists, and wild sheep leaders like Val Geist, Ray Lee, and Marco Festa-Bianchet, (as well as Alaska’s Heimer) agree such data simply don’t exist. ADF&G has not acknowledged this input during the last year, and ADF&G has not presented a balanced review of the biology involved to the Board of Game. Others have tried. That’s why “any-ram” is “open” at this Board of Game meeting.
  
  
• DNA-based data prove subdominant rams (rams less than full curl) do half the breeding in exhaustively studied bighorn populations. Hence, ADF&G’s fear that small rams will dominate breeding and ruin genetics can’t work. So far, ADF&G has not accepted this fact and shared it with the Board of Game.
  
  
• ADF&G now justifies the “any ram” harvest as an “experiment” in the Chugach, but the experiment is not yet well enough designed to produce any reliable information.
  
  
• Hunters are confused and distressed because ADF&G wants to reduce Dall sheep hunting opportunities based on unsupported speculation and because open hunting of “any ram” cannot occur without biological harm. This means all future hunting where “any ram” is the rule will have to be on restrictive permits.
  
  
• Alaska FNAWS, the Alaska Outdoor Council, the Alaska Professional Hunters Association, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Association, and many Advisory Committees agree “any ram” must go, and support a return to “full-curl” until there are sound data which show it will be an improvement.