On the Adventure Trail

by Ken Nowicki

CRITICAL CRITTER THEORY

“Management implications of highly resolved hierarchical population genetic structure in thinhorn sheep.”* *Conserv. Genet. 20, 185-201

Inever know what to expect from my friends Lead-On Highfee and Packtrain MacNamee when we get together down at Ruby’s Café. But I can be sure they will be entertaining and often educational. It’s more entertaining when they argue with each other and don’t pick on me. I am always hopeful that they give me some tips for finding big rams.

On this day they were debating equine husbandry. Or so I thought.

“You can’t judge a horse by the color of the hide,” Packtrain said with emphasis.

“If you can judge a horse so good,” sneered Lead-On, “How come you missed the Kentucky Derby winner?”

“Because I didn’t get to see them with my own eyes. All I see on TV is shades of gray.”

“Maybe you should buy a new color model with high definition.”

“I can help you with that,” I beamed. “You’ll be able to see the pucks when you watch a hockey game. I’ll set you up with live stream.”

“Listen up Boy,” said Packtrain. “We is talking about critical issues here. The standards we are discussing concern holding up time-honored interpretations and social constructs from a period when North Americans were less concerned about correct classifications and about cultural norms that reflected distributions related to geopolitical boundaries.”

My head was spinning. What were they talking about? I could see they were studying the 2022 British Columbia Hunting Regulations.

“We’ve said it before,” emphasized Lead-On. “Now the biologits are confirming what we always said. It take’s more than a few black hairs to turn a Dall’s sheep into a Stone’s.”

“Well, I have shot a sheep that might be called a Fannin,” I said. “It’s got a white face and a black and white salt and pepper cape. I thought it was a Stone/Dall crossbreed.”

“Get woke,” snapped Packtrain. “Here’s the actual scientific paper and it says and I quote;”

As an indicator of the resulting significant change proposed in subspecies range distribution, the authors of the above study have categorically stated that virtually all Thinhorn sheep in the Yukon (which have dark coats and have always been hunted as Stone’s sheep) are more correctly classified as Dall’s sheep, making the worldwide distribution for Stone’s sheep almost entirely with British Columbia. This presents a radical departure from long held beliefs that coat color is a reliable way to distinguish subspecies, and it is likely to be met with significant skepticism from at least some of the hunting community.

“Do you know what the ramifications of this are?” Lead-On fixed me with his beady eyes. “Rams ain’t Stone’s if they ain’t shot in B.C.”

“I guess,” I replied. “That’s ramification. But who says so?”

“Scienstits and Biolgits,” Lead-On was spitting up a chew and I backed off a respectable social distance about two chairs down at Ruby’s lunch counter. “These idjits and egg-heads are saying there’s no Stone’s in the Yukon.”

“But that will upset the members of the Fullhouse Collection Club (FCC) and the Stone and Bone Accumulators Organization (SBAO) not to mention other venerable record keeping institutions like the Wild Sheep Foundation, and we are all members of that.” I was flabbergast.

“Youse are correct,” Packtrain said. “And the outfitters in BC are going to be dancing a jig right down to the bank. I wish I was back outfitting. What do you think a pure strain Stone’s sheep hunt will bring?”

“Top dollar, for sure. And they is already a pretty penny,” Lead-On said and shook his head. “But this ain’t the first controversy I’ve seen in the hunting business. Did you ever consider how many species of bears they are touting as separate award categories. I don’t know if it’s hunters that hype these differences or outfitters with an agenda.”

“It ain’t a black and white problem, Boy. Black bears are black bears, but they come in lots of colors. There are blacks and cinammons and browns and blue glacier bears and even white Kermodes.”

“Caribou too, I guess,” I ventured.

“I think there are five kinds listed in the books.”

“And grizzly,” said Lead-On. “They have Kodiaks and brown bears and mountain grizzly and Arctic grizzly and my view is they are all big and all nasty. There’s no real differences. Did you ever see a small grizzly, Boy?”

“Sheep are a whole different game,” opined Packtrain. “The Slamo Grande of Wild North American sheep is one of Desert, Bighorn, Stone’s and Dall’s.”

“And they all got Latin names. Those Ovis Dall’s are pure white and different than Ovis Ston’s,” said Lead-On. “But, the funny thing is Stone’s are called Ovis Dalli Stonei. Why’s that?”

“Hey, I can Google up the Wickipedia pages and find that answer,” I said. “It’s right on my phone.”

“He’s using Nowickileaks again,” snorted Lead-On. “OK what’s it say?”

Current genetics analyses using a genomewide set of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) has confirmed new subspecies range boundaries for both Dall’s and Stone’s sheep, updating the previous pelage-based and mitochondrial DNA classifications. ”That ain’t plain English, Boy,” snapped Packtrain. “But I know the pelt on a Dall’s sheep with a single black hair has been touted by those Yukon outfits as a Stone’s sheep. Even some outfits in the N.W.T. were claiming Stone’s were getting shot in the Mackenzie Mountains. I never thought that was right.”

“No you wouldn’t,” chided LeadOn. “You wuz selling Stone’s hunts in North BC and you didn’t want the competition from the Yukon.”

“Now the proof is in the pudding,” smiled Packtrain. “The only Stone’s sheep are from BC. Anything north of BC is a Dall’s.”

“Apparently that’s what they are saying,” I said and scrutinized the various reports, including notations in the Yukon and BC regulations. “These biologists just might get stoned at the next Thinhorn Sheep Summit.”

“They just had that meeting in Whitehorse,” gurned both the old Outfitters. “We was invited to give them some apocolyptic observations but we declined. No way we is going north of 60 anymore except in the summer time.”

“Well, some apocryphal observations are helpful to scientists I think,” I ventured as I scanned the material. “But the root of this issue seems to be something in the genes. Dall’s sheep and Stone’s sheep are

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different it says in this study and there’s no in-betweens.”

“I’m leery of anything written in stone, with the exception of Mose’s tablets,” quoth Lead-On. “Scientists say one thing, but hunters have a say in the matter. How can the record books come up with a new rule that works and is fair for hunters? Some of those Yukon Stone’s were entered into the books 50 years ago, when Packtrain and I were working for Night Flight and other outfitters who shall remain nameless.” He gave a supercilious grin.

“I heard about those days,” I said. “Hunters back then wanted all three northern Thinhorns, including Dall’s, Stone’s and Fannin. A Fannin was a special thing. Some early writers even said they were a separate subspecies, and others claimed they were a cross-breed. There was always some diversity in the opinions on the color of each species of sheep.”

“Outfitters always loved the collectors who wanted all three,” chortled Packtrain. “But here’s the problem. Dall’s sheep are white, and Stone’s are black. How much black on white makes a Dall’s ram a Stone’s or a Fannin. And it don’t work viceversa. Stone’s always have beautiful contrasting white legs and rump patches.”

“This is worse than getting your DNA checked and finding your ancestry shows your momma married her first cousin,” yukked Lead-On. “What a mess.”

“Maybe the Powers That Be in all the clubs can think of a solution. Maybe they grandfather the entries they have and start from scratch for any rams entered up to now.”

“I don’t think they are saying there are three subspecies,” I puzzled. “It looks to me like there are only two and the Stone’s sheep is found nowhere but in British Columbia. I better get home and pull out the books and study on this.”

“Wait, Boy, you forgot my favorite color.” “What’s that?”

“It’s green. Ain’t you going to buy coffee?”

And so I did shell out some cash, and a tip for Ruby, but I never got any tips on where to find big rams from the cagey old Outfitters. WS

Editors Note:

Nowicki has been collating the scientific reports and studies on pellage classifications and poring over his collections of early hunting magazines from the Big Three Outdoor classics as well as books written by the preeminent authorities on big game hunting and sheep in particular. At this juncture he is unsure what the reception will be from the hunting cognoscenti when he delivers his preliminary findings at the next Wild Sheep Convention in Reno. He is trying to organize a group discussion with a panel drawn from some of the surviving great minds and names he has gleaned from reviewing the hunting annals, including hunters and Yukon and BC Outfitters. He has developed a questionnaire which he is sending to all the parties asking for kill locations in order to produce a mapping overlay which he will use to consider the geographic expanse of the various Dall’s and Stone’s sheep ranges. He reports his initial response from many of those he has contacted has been less than favorable and he has obtained very few specific locations for harvested rams. Nevertheless, he is committed to searching for kill locations in order to bring clarity to the spatial distribution of all classes of Thinhorn sheep. He insists that he is not seeking the data for personal reasons and he promises an update in the next edition of Wild Sheep® magazine.