Hello friends! Welcome to the summer edition of MTWSF’s Newsletter. It’s an exciting time of year. I have
been hearing some of you drew a sheep tag this year! Congratulations! I know those of you who didn’t
draw will be living vicariously through the lucky winners. A colleague of mine was one of the draw winners and it
was fantastic to see his excitement. It gave me an opportunity to reminisce about my sheep hunting experiences,
offer some advice, and reinvigorate my enthusiasm for this organization.
We have been busy on several projects since we last spoke after the banquet. The first project has been essential for the continued health of our organization as we grow. We’ve been transitioning our financial and accounting
footprint to electronic software. That has required close coordination between our accountant and the executive
team. I’d like to thank Erika Putnam (Secretary) and Mark Westfall (Treasurer) for their extra effort the past few months to get the new system up and running. Thanks to this project we will be better positioned to monitor, track, and report our finances to the board of directors and our membership. It will also make doing our taxes a breeze,
if you can imagine that!
WThe Board of Directors and Conservation Committee have been focused on finding ways to positively impact
bighorn sheep in Montana. Two projects were advanced this past quarter to improve habitat and well being of two
sheep herds. The Stafford Ferry Conservation Easement, which was discussed in last quarters newsletter will
conserve 30 acres of critical lambing habitat if approved. MTWSF will contribute $5,000 to that project. The East
Cliffs Addition to the Blue-Eye Nellie Wildlife Management Area is a proposed land acquisition project. It is aimed
at preventing a future land use change that could negatively affect the high-use bighorn sheep habitat. MTWSF is
committing $25,000 to the project and is actively pursuing additional funding to assist the Montana Fish, Wildlife,
and Parks with project funding. A special thanks is due to Ray Vinkey (Director) and Shane Clouse (past-President) for their contributions to this project. We also awarded another $5,000 to the Alberta Wild Sheep
Foundation for habitat improvements near Grotto Mountain.
Plans have been made for our annual strategic meeting, which will be held “camp-out” style near Helena, MT. The Directors will meet to establish our goals for the next year (and beyond), as well as an operating budget.
The in-person meeting will be a welcome change from our monthly virtual meetings and hopefully will include viewing bighorn sheep. We have a wonderful team of volunteer board members who are dedicated to making a
difference for Montana wild sheep and it will be a weekend well spent. If you have interest in joining this amazing team, the annual election is upcoming. I would encourage you to share your talent and submit your nomination!
Take care and be well.
Highlights from this Issue
Conservation Corner
Story by: Ray Vinkey
In this issues’ Conservation Corner, Brent Lonner provides a history of bighorn sheep licenses in
Montana and the odds that this will be your year. The news is mixed. In the last decade ram license
numbers have been relatively stable, but drawing odds are going down due to increased numbers of
applicants. In 2023, from a cumulative statewide perspective, the odds of drawing one of the 120 limited licenses was .52%.
Read the whole article in our Wild Sheep Newsletter, Summer 2024.
Chapter & Affiliate Summit
XVI Report
On July 14th & 15th Calgary, Alberta hosted the annual Chapter and Affiliate Summit. Executive director, Ty Stubblefield and Secretary, Erika Putnam, attended on behalf of the MTWSF. Presentations captured a variety of information about science, disease, chapter projects, wildlife management, predator control, land management and much more. Field trips were to the Canmore & the Evan Thomas Burn and to Sheep River Sanctuary. An auction was held on the final evening generating even more funds to keep sheep on the mountain.
