Hard to take them seriously when they put info like this out. Where do they come up with these numbers? I'm guessing they are low by at least 50x on that aoudad number…

Mistaken identity is actually a problem, as far as I understand. I've been told that's why you're not allowed to kill Aoudad on drawn hunts out in West Texas mule deer range. For example, Big Bend mule deer.

I'm not sure how much I believe getting a ram confused, but a ewe or a juvenile maybe.

As far as the numbers, I'm sure it's hard to estimate. I pulled the summer 2023 bighorn society magazine where they had a writeup from Froylan Hernandez, program leader for TPWD.

In july/August 2023 they did aerial surveys on 5 sites from Hueco Mountains to Elephant mountain and observed 1134 Aoudad, killing 505 with aerial gunning and tissue sampling.

The last numbers I saw and I believe it was earlier this year, was around 79k animals. I have personally seen over 100 in one day - actually in about an hour span - in the hill country. They're a much bigger problem than most people want to admit but they make a lot of landowners money…

Found article and it was 75k in North America, of which I am sure 90% are TX and 9% are NM with 1% maybe elsewhere.

Quote:

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Now, more than 75,000 aoudads exist in North America, while the species' wild population in North Africa is at high risk for extinction existing of between 5,000 to 10,000 individuals.

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https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/environment/2023/02/26/how-an-african-sheep-species-found-home-on-the-high-plains/69940456007/

I wonder if part of the delta between 80k and 20k is free range vs high fenced private herds.

Could be

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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The last numbers I saw and I believe it was earlier this year, was around 79k animals. I have personally seen over 100 in one day - actually in about an hour span - in the hill country. They're a much bigger problem than most people want to admit but they make a lot of landowners money…

Found article and it was 75k in North America, of which I am sure 90% are TX and 9% are NM with 1% maybe elsewhere.

Quote:

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Now, more than 75,000 aoudads exist in North America, while the species' wild population in North Africa is at high risk for extinction existing of between 5,000 to 10,000 individuals.

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https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/environment/2023/02/26/how-an-african-sheep-species-found-home-on-the-high-plains/69940456007/

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Wow what a bunch of fake news… OP says there's 1,000,000 in just Texas. Whoever said it's only 75k in NA is clearly a moron.

There's closer to 1,000,000 in Texas than 20,000

there are free range audad in approximately 30ish counties in texas which is a little over 10% of the state(254 counties total). If there are a million audad in the state that would mean there are close to 30-40 per square mile throughout the entire areas of all of those counties.

An estimated 8,000 aoudad reside in the ecologically fragile 317,000 acre Chinati Mountain range where they compete for food and water and degrade habitat that is home to bighorns, mule deer, etc.

Yet there are landowners who want the aoudad around because of the money to be made for selling ram hunts.

CivilEng08 said:

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Mistaken identity is actually a problem, as far as I understand. I've been told that's why you're not allowed to kill Aoudad on drawn hunts out in West Texas mule deer range. For example, Big Bend mule deer.

I'm not sure how much I believe getting a ram confused, but a ewe or a juvenile maybe.

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Correct, aoudad are off limits on Trans Pecos mule deer draw hunts due to the potential for misidentification.

I did department released aoudad sheep, Lincoln index (helicopter tree marking paint ball pistol) census, $20/hour with Roger Evans from Lubbock for 2 years in palo duro canyon in middle 1960's, P R reports.