New mexico public land barbary sheep

I live 1.5 hours from the OTC area and won't even bother to buy a license these days. They opened that up with the stated objective of reducing the Barbary population to support reintroduction of native desert bighorn sheep. I'd say they were successful. The last few times I hunted that area I saw no animals and extremely limited fresh sign. Occasionally I still hear of a sighting or one getting killed, but those occurrences are quite rare compared to ten years ago when I killed mine in that area. I suppose if you had unlimited time, energy, and plenty of gas money you could scour the Sacramentos and maybe some of the odd-ball places over on the east side of Unit 34 and maybe scratch up a sheep, but you will have earned it.

I hunted one of the draw areas this January and had multiple opportunities, just none at sheep with enough horn size to be of interest.
 
DesertRam said:
I live 1.5 hours from the OTC area and won't even bother to buy a license these days. They opened that up with the stated objective of reducing the Barbary population to support reintroduction of native desert bighorn sheep. I'd say they were successful. The last few times I hunted that area I saw no animals and extremely limited fresh sign. Occasionally I still hear of a sighting or one getting killed, but those occurrences are quite rare compared to ten years ago when I killed mine in that area. I suppose if you had unlimited time, energy, and plenty of gas money you could scour the Sacramentos and maybe some of the odd-ball places over on the east side of Unit 34 and maybe scratch up a sheep, but you will have earned it.

I hunted one of the draw areas this January and had multiple opportunities, just none at sheep with enough horn size to be of interest.
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Thanks for your input. I was mainly looking at 34
 
Not uncommon for states to offer easy to obtain lic, in areas where the population target number is 0. Usually agricultural depredation or a native species protection plan when population "reduction" is the goal.
 
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