Illegal bighorn sheep killing continuing in B.C.

Provincial conservation officers are concerned about the illegal killing of bighorn sheep in B.C.'s Thompson-Nicola region after five of the animals were reported shot within four days.

Earlylast week, someone shot and dumped two Rocky Mountain bighorn rams near Lytton.

Just days later, on Friday,arancherreported finding the carcasses of threeCalifornia bighorns near Clinton, northwest of Kamloops. Just as in Lytton, 120 kilometres away, the animalshad beenshot and thenabandoned.

Bob Butcher, a conservation services officer in Lillooet, saidthe latest shooting is especially troubling.

"There's absolutely no reason for it,"he said.

He said the killed sheep were from a herd that wasn't doing particularly well.

"There's illness problems. There's lamb survival [problems] in the spring," he said.

Butcheralso saidthere is no indication that thetwo incidentswere linked, other than the fact that "some idiot" was involved in each. Hecalled both shootings a waste of wildlife, and hopes the culprit or culprits are found soon.

"In most of these cases, you know, somebody that does such a stupid thing is also too stupid to keep their mouth shut," he said.

"So hopefully they have told somebody, and that somebody doesn't like what they have heard and is able to help us put an end to it," Butcher said.

Butcher said it is extremely rare for people to kill bighorn sheep for target practice.

B.C. does allow huntingfor bighorn mountain sheep in the Lytton and Clinton areas, but a hunting schedule posted online shows that the regular 2011 seasonfor bighorns in those areas closed on Oct.20.

The B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations also requires that bighorn sheep hunters are properly licensedand that they presentthe killed animals to regionalinspection centres as part of the provincial management program.