Ovis nivicola is translated as the sheep habitats in snow, in Russia it's called snow sheep, the natives call it chubuk or chubuku. The hair color can varies from brown-black to white in dependence of season and the habitat. There are several reasons to defined the row of snow sheep subspecies. We won’t go to the details of taxonomies and the assessment of the significance of morphological features though the definition of subspecies subspecific taxon are based on them. The CMH used the system, suggested by Nikolai Zheleznov (Chukotksy) who determined six subspecies of snow sheep. I’m going to talk about one of them- Chukotka snow sheep.
Snow sheep or chubuk belong to the Bovids in the family of even-toed ungulates. The taxonomies differ the North American bighorns and Asian snow sheep as two species - Ovis canadensis (Shaw, 1804) and Ovis nivicola (Eschscholtz, 1829). But some of them consider the Asian sheep to be a subspecies of the North American bighorns. Let's leave it on their conscience, just like some Americans call their sheep bighorns and the others thinhorns.
The only thing which is important, is that all recognized hunting organizations such as GSCO, SCI and CIC, try to find as many differences as they can, not only between American and Asian sheep but between sub-taxon of these species.
Let’s start our talk about snow sheep and our today hero is Chukotka snow sheep.
Snow sheep dwell in the Eastern Siberia only. If you paint a line from Baikal lake through Khabarovsk region to the north of Chukotka and Yakutia to the plateau Putorana near the border with Taimyr and Evenkia, it’ll cross the habitat of all snow sheep species though some of them are located quite discretely.
During the golden century for sheep in the Pleistocene sheep habited from Kuril islands and The Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka and Sakhalin in the east to the Kuznetsk Basin in the west. Sheep preferred to dwell not in the highlands only, you can meet them even on the plateaus too. Later in the Holocene period, the climate changed what decreased the sheep population and formed the new habitat. But it was wide enough till the active development Siberia by Cossacks. In 1665 the protopop Avvakum saw snow sheep on the shore rocks of Angara, where the Bratsk hydroelectric power stations is located now and in the south part of Baikal region. The Cossacks had exterminated the isolated sheep population. It happened on the Kuril Islands and the Aleutian Islands several centuries ago and it continued unchecked in other regions till the mid of XX century. We exactly know when the Vitim sheep population was destroyed. It happened in the multi-snow winter in 1920. They also killed all boars in the floodplain of Chara river. The snow sheep disappeared from Baikal ridge in the first part of XX century. They are preserved on the Kodar ridge only. The climate change led to the reduction of the Alpine meadows, which overgrew by cedar woods. The negative effect had the unchecked shooting of sheep by plenty of geological and topographic expeditions; mining in the sheep habitat and the development of chopper transportation. The expeditions activity has reduced just at the beginning of our century and the price for a helicopter became so high that allowed to reduce the poachers’ pressure. There are several nature reserves such as Putorana, Magadan, Kronotsky and others. But we think that the most effective way to protect and to increase the number of sheep population is to develop the net of specialized hunting farms. There are lots of examples how the hunting farms protect and make their best to increase game species.
The area of the modern range of the snow sheep is about 1.4 million square kilometers. You can meet it in the Stanovoy Ridge, on the Stanovoy highland and in the north Yablonovy Ridge, in the mountains of Kamchatka, in the Koryak highlands, in Chukotka, in the mountains of the Verkhoyansk mountain system. The separate western part of their habitat, in in 1300 km from the Eastern parts, and located on the Putorana plateau. The density of sheep population in Yakutia, Magadan, Chukotka and Kamchatka is high enough, you can also find them in the north of Amur and Khabarovsk region. Sheep habitat in the north-east of Irkutsk region, Bodaby district, on the Kodar mountains. The number of isolated populations is about 400 individuals. Some of them were detected in Chita region, on the eastern slopes of the Kodar mountains, turned to the Chara Basin.
The southern and southwestern border of sheep habitat are defined inaccurately, because animals were seen in hundreds km from the place where they dwell. For example, recently – at the end of the XX century - snow sheep were detected in Buryatia, in the upper reaches of the Barguzin River, at the junction of the Barguzinsky and Yuzhno-Muysky ridges.
If I try to describe snow sheep, I’d say that all of them have strong constructions. The head isn't big with short ears (about 11cm length), and have a short but thick neck. The front legs are also short and thick. The body length of the adult rams are from 140 to 188cm, 76-112cm height in withers, weight - 56-150 kg. The ewes are smaller. The biggest sheep representative’s habitat in Kamchatka and Chukotka.
Chukotka snow sheep, described by Nikolai Zheleznov (Chukotksy) in 1994, inhabitants in the mountain regions of Chukotka and Koryak highland. There are about 100 hearth inside the areal. During the last ten years sheep disappeared from the mountains of Tramvajska, the Ushkany, Ostanevich, in the upper reaches of the rivers of Amguema (Yapranay lake, springs Primetny, Zayzchiy, the mountain Privalnay), Puvetbeema, Pogyndena, in the Ktepnayvaama region and others. Nowadays you can find them on the Anadyr plateau, the Barany mountains of Chukotka, ridges Pikulney, Chantalsky and other highlands. Most part of their habitats are located on the heights from 400 to 1500-1700masl.
The density of Chukotka snow sheep is from 0,3 to 3,5 individuals on 1000 ha. The single individuals still dwell in some parts of Rarytkin ridge, Zolotoy, Elekay and mountains the Northern and Southern Vapanaavaam. The total number of snow sheep in the mountains of the Chukotka Peninsula does not exceed 500 individuals. 600-700 sheep dwell on the Pikulney ridge.
The main reason of the reduction of snow sheep number is poaching. A significant number of animals die from predators-wolves and wolverines.
Trophy hunting for Chukotka snow sheep is opened from 2012. According to reports. About 10 licenses are allocated for this purpose per year. The hunting is allowed on the Koryak highlands, the most part of which is located in Chukotka region. It’s prohibited on the Anadyr plateau, in the Barany mountains and some other regions. The management of CMH took the decision to register the trophies of Chukotka snow sheep, officially hunted in Chukotka. GSCO and other American clubs register the trophies, taken in Chukotka region too, as the Chukotka snow sheep.
The American hunter Rex Baker who happened to be one from the first foreign hunters in Chukotka, published a report where described his hunting with Justin Reggiseno in the last August. He was sure that they hunter for Chukotka snow sheep.
“From Anchorage we arrived to Petropavlovks, then flew to Tilichiki (Kamchatka) and then moved by chopper to the camp, located on Chukotka in 100km to the north from the forest zone. It’s not know much about sheep in that remote area what made our trip even more exciting. We detected the flock of rams while flying by chopper, landed not far from them with the guide and the interpreter.
It rained all day but we actively looked for the animals, hiking up and down by hills from 200 to 500 feet height. We found the mob of 80 sheep but there was not the adult males. At last we had hunted young ones.
The hunt was organized by Bob Kern, the owner of Hunting Consortium company, I used their service not once. Kern told me that worked for that project for many years. He studied Chukotka from 90s and saw snow sheep during their hunts for Chukotka moose in the floodplain of Anadyr river. Chukotka subspecies has light hair color than other snow sheep. Hunting for Chukotka snow sheep is legal and opened now. Bob could manage to get several licenses.
Next year we are going to enter deep to that remote land to find other numerous flocks and to know where the adult rams spend their summer”.
