According to the “experts” quoted above, backcountry skiers threaten bighorn sheep numbers.
This is contrary to our hands-on, 20-year experience with the desert bighorn sheep in far-West Texas. If humans don’t harass them, bighorn ignore people. As reported on this blog, a miner in the Sierra Nevadas actually taught wild bighorn to accept treats from his hand: he said their favorites were cigarettes and Doritos.
Left alone, sheep are dog-gentle. But so are many other species.
Heli-skiers in the Selkirk Mountains just north of Idaho, not far from Revelstoke BC, are routinely landed by twin engine Bell 212 helicopters near herds of lichen-grazing forest caribou which are so unconcerned that they do not even raise their heads.
Those who believe that wild animals are inherently fearful of non-hunters should consider the behavior of unhunted bear, elk and bison in the parks, of moose in residential subdivisions from Idaho to Alaska, and deer everywhere.
The invasive species attacks on wildlife and human use of public land have much more to do with the beliefs and agendas of environmental ideologues, than managers’ experience-based knowledge of wildlife.
