Yes and Yes.
Trophy Hunting
- Thread starter sheephunter
- Start date
Yes and Yes.
From what I've read from this paper it could be a valid conclusion.
Here's one of my favourite quotes from the paper...
"The selective effect of the trophy hunt would increase with harvest intensity, yet harvest rates are difficult to calculate because no reliable data exist on the availability of harvestable rams."
So maybe a couple flights would be of more value right now than this speculation. Maybe some range assessments to see if the quality and size of the range is a concern (the radium area program comes to mind), perhaps some actual weights and measures of the actual individuals in the herd maybe body size is decreasing.
There are a lot of of unknowns "if" you buy in to the premise and even then draws as an answer to this supposed problem have not been shown in any way to be the solution.
Also what have we cherry picked? Suprisingly duffy this is an important question.
Cherry picking is a one way street in regards to research papers. You can definitely cherry pick to try to prove a point you want to prove but picking out flaws in research is not cherry picking at all but rather it's simply pointing out the flaws of the research. Peer review panels do it all the time. If a country bumpkin like me can point out all the obvious flaws in this paper, I can imagine what a peer review panel would do to it. The person presenting a paper has to defend it.....those criticizing the research don't. It seems Duffy has forgotten that basic premise of research. For whatever reason some people just blindly accept the conclusions of some research, especially when it's in the media but peer review panels tear them to shreds all the time. They'd have a field day with this one.
Last edited:
I hear you my point is I would hate to be missing something. I like to think I have everything I need to make up my mind and on this I have made up my mind but if I have cherry picked I need to know that.
As for the peer reviewed process, I am much more cynical, I've seen so much crap published with nothing more than grammatical corrections it makes my head hurt and this paper is no exception as it is already published.
As for the peer reviewed process, I am much more cynical, I've seen so much crap published with nothing more than grammatical corrections it makes my head hurt and this paper is no exception as it is already published.
Blame it on the wolves. Energy spent running from predators is energy not spent growing horns.
It has been a while since I've read my Geist, but IIRC he touches on that the biggest rams are big because they are NOT breeding. So if horn size is in fact shrinking, maybe it is due to increased breeding. Or maybe it is due to the degradation of the range.
It has been a while since I've read my Geist, but IIRC he touches on that the biggest rams are big because they are NOT breeding. So if horn size is in fact shrinking, maybe it is due to increased breeding. Or maybe it is due to the degradation of the range.
