2023 BC Wild Sheep Summit

n the follow-up to the 3rd Thinhorn Sheep Summit that recently took place in May 2022 up in Whitehorse YT, and with the ongoing changing landscape in wildlife management concerns here in British Columbia, an idea was born to do something similar for Wild Sheep in BC. The decision was made by the BoD of WSSBC(with the help of others) to develop and host a BC Wild Sheep Summit with the idea that we needed to regionally address and create accountability around our Wild Sheep issues here. In mid-November, after months of work by many truly dedicated folks, it all came to fruition as the inaugural BC Wild Sheep Summit was held at the Coast Hotel in Prince George, with one massive long-term objective in mind: To re-establish Wild Sheep populations to historic abundance across British Columbia. Simple enough to say, but no small task to pull off. Nevertheless, an intense three-day itinerary was built with six primary goals in mind: 1. Bring all interested stakeholders and titleholders together creating a collaborative approach to tackle present wild sheep challenges. These entities include First Nations, government, guide outfitters, industry, academia, the scientific community, funding partners and conservation organizations. 2. Establish a baseline of overall wild sheep population numbers including trends for each region across the province. 3. Rely on scientific and traditional knowledge to accurately identify specific limiting factors to wild sheep which may include herd health, predation, habitat, disease or other issues. 4. Provide region-specific working groups to identify the

leading challenges to wild sheep and more importantly provide action plans that address these concerns. 5. While threats to wild sheep will be identified and action plans generated, a long-term goal is to create a conduit for enhanced communication between all stakeholders and titleholders to ensure these action plans are implemented. We envision providing these action plans to the newly established Together For Wildlife Regional Roundtables and pressing for accountability that they are carried out in line with the S.M.A.R.T. goals principle. 6. Select media representatives have been invited with the goal of promoting the conservation efforts our community is making to ensure the sustainability of wild sheep in British

Columbia. Goal 1 was met easily enough as invitations were sent to as many relevant First Nations, government, guide outfitters, industry, academia, the scientific community, funding partners and conservation organizations as we were aware of. Surely we missed a few and you can bet our list will be longer for the next one, but overall our invitations were met with great results. In total, 95 of us from every corner of the province(and beyond) and from many different backgrounds came together to tackle this monumental task, a massive first step in itself. It was repeatedly said by speakers throughout the Summit how important it was to have this many people from such a diversity of backgrounds involved in the Summit. It is by working together that we can achieve the greatest results and we saw very clearly that we all shared the same vision for healthy Wild

Sheep here in BC. It should be noted that the presence of staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Trasportation and Infrastructure would be welcome additions to our regional working groups as Wild Sheep issues requiring their involvement are found throughout the province. Goal 2 was tackled after the opening ceremonies as CoManagement presentations from both the First Nations AND Government perspectives, as well as presentations from regional Ministry staff provided us all with a general breakdown of the current status of our Wild Sheep, as best we know it. Goals 3 and 4 are the meat and potatoes of this conservation dish and to achieve them all that we needed was the face to face dialogue we were about to embark on. In order to keep ourselves focused and actually accomplish something tangible at the end of the Summit, we broke down into regional working groups. WSSBC Board of Directors, as well as a number of volunteers, served as facilitators and notetakers in each group, with the task of keeping the dialogue open and focused, and collating the discussion into actionable items with timelines. As one can imagine, the issues and priorities were different from region to region. Each group spent the afternoon discussing their concerns and developing strategies to solve them. We then finished off the working portion of the day by presenting each group’s findings to the whole Summit. Through this process, we were able to stay aware of each other’s progress and potentially find solutions to our own problems from another group. After dinner, we had a screening of Transmission, our documentary film on Mycoplasma Ovipneumoniae made by Filter Studios. It was so great to share it with so many new people and we believe it made a positive impact. Many subsequent screenings were requested throughout the province that we hope to accomplish as soon as possible. As with any Wild Sheep event, we had a bit of a social gathering to cap the night, where folks were able to mingle and converse about the day’s events and discussions while enjoying a beverage or two. We were back at it again early the next day, breaking back into our regional working groups, this time to clean up and refine our previous day’s work. The discussions were heated at times for many groups because we all care so much about Wild Sheep and the places they live, but it always remained respectful and positive and true progress was made for many issues throughout the province. After a couple of hours, the groups were again ready to share their regional issues and action plans to the main group with presentations being made by the WSSBC representatives from each group.

We wrapped up the Summit with closing remarks and a promise to collate and distribute a formalized action plan for the province, broken down by region. This summary is in the final editing phase as of this writing and should be publicly available by the time you are reading this. As for what has happened in the few weeks since, the regional working groups that were formed during the Summit are continuing to work on their plans and implement action where they can. Additionally, many new contacts and organizations are being introduced to these groups as momentum for Wild Sheep conservation continues to grow organically. For our members, as you’re the only ones reading this article, we didn’t know how this was going to go when we made the decision to give it a try but we felt it was worth it. I think I can speak for the rest of the Board when I say now that it most certainly was. It truly felt like progress was being made at each table because almost all the right people were at the table and for those present, they were all willing to set their differences aside for a common interest. Wild Sheep Forever. If you would like more information on the Summit, please visit: https://www.wildsheepsociety.com/bcsummit/