I am looking forward to 2021 with many new opportunities ahead. Several Montana Wild Sheep Foundation (MTWSF) members and directors participated in a sheep capture in December to restore wild sheep to the Little Belt Mountains. Fifty sheep were captured and released and are reported to be doing very well in their new home. MTWSF has also planned to help with a major sheep study and habitat restoration in area 250, the West Fork of the Bitterroot, along the Idaho/Montana border. The West Fork is very wild country and is bordered by the Selway Bitterroot wilderness to the south and west. It is a majestic area that is difficult to access but is filled with beauty and wonder. I am especially passionate to help on this project as it is close to my home.

While I will greatly miss seeing all of our members in person, our 2021 MTWSF Fundraiser and auction on February 27th will be available to everyone online. We’ve already made great progress adding options to our website to help enhance the online experience. Thanks to several board members and Meetings Northwest for helping MTWSF increase its online presence. Many of the raffle opportunities are already listed on our website MontanaWSF.org.

Montana doesn’t allow raffle purchases with credit cards so go to the MontanaWSF.org with your debit card ready and purchase tickets now! Please pass the information along to all of your friends. If your friends aren’t yet MTWSF members please encourage them to join. You’ll still be able to enter the Life Member Dall sheep hunt drawing when you sign up for the MTWSF Virtual Fundraiser. The MT Wild Sheep Virtual Fundraiser on February 27th will be available for everyone to attend so it is very important that you update your information and make sure we have your current email address. With several wild sheep captures, transplants, studies, and habitat restorations coming up it is vital that our membership support the virtual fundraiser so that we can raise funds to pay for these exciting projects.

Shane Clouse

Montana Wild Sheep Foundation President
shane@shaneclouse.com
(406) 370-4487

2016 Wrangell St Elias, Alaska, Ultima Thule Dall Sheep Adventure

Story by: California Wild Sheep Raffle Winner Donald Patterson

My adventure started with a phone call at my work, “Is this Don Patterson?” I said yes. They said, “Congratulations you have been selected as this year’s winner of the California Wild Sheep raffle drawing!” I thought to myself this must be a scam, I told the caller I was at work and could I call them back later that afternoon? We agreed that at 2 p.m. I would call Donald C. Martin aka “Hollywood” as I would come to know him.

I called Don back that afternoon and began my journey to Alaska’s Wrangell St. Elias National Preserve and an Ultima Thule Dall sheep hunt. I quickly realized I was in for a serious adventure and that I would need to be in the best physical condition of my life. I’m a 62 year old average guy from Montana that likes hunting
elk and deer every year in the mountains of western Montana. I have also been putting in for a Big Horn sheep tag in Montana for 13 years and have never drawn so this would be my first sheep hunt. I got on the web and looked up Ultima Thule and read the story of Paul and Donna Claus and the name Ultima Thule. The ancient Greeks used the name “Ultima Thule” to describe the unknowable realm beyond the northern bounds of their maps. I knew this would be the adventure of a life time.

Read the whole article in our WildSheep Newsletter, Winter 2021.

A Cabinet Mountain Wilderness sheep hunt like none other…

Story by: Tony Fantozzi

2020 has been a lousy year for a lot of people. Coronavirus and the associated economic stress left many people to consider 2020 an unlucky year. In my case, however, 2020 was about as lucky a year as one person can have!

My lucky streak started when I finally landed the job I’ve always wanted working in a hydroelectric dam near my home town of Helena, Montana. I had been waiting for an opening there for years and the positions there are coveted throughout the company. Therefore, after accepting my new position I figured that I had used up my allotted luck for the year.

I had only held my new job for a few weeks when special tags where drawn. I was in the control room with my coworkers, who were attempting to teach me the finer points of operating a hydroelectric dam (with varying results). When break time rolled around everyone logged on to the FWP website to see if they had drawn any tags. As I was not expecting much, I let all my coworkers go first. I’d been applying for the big three permits since I was twelve years old without success; and thirty years later I had about given up on ever seeing any of them.

Read the whole article in our WildSheep Newsletter, Winter 2021.