Sheep Scout | Life Below Zero

For Glen Villa, new scouting animal behavior in the Brooks Range is key to harvesting meat and protein for survival in the fall. Doll sheep hunting season will be open, and locating them now is a priority. I'm gonna head up into the mountains this morning, spend a few days walking around, finding a promising area to hunt a couple of months from now.

Hunting sheep is the most physically demanding hunting I do. I have to walk further and on more difficult terrain, and spend more time seeking out sheep than any other animal I hunt. Sheep like to stay up high where there are rocks they can escape to when the predators are around. That's how they get away from wolves; that's how they get away from me.

I'm gonna head up this ridge, see what I can find up there. I'm getting up above treeline now. I gotta start thinking about being quiet; you know, start thinking about the direction of the wind, how it's carrying my scent. I gotta start using terrain to conceal myself because the sheep are very cautious animals.

This is a sheep trail right here; there's sheep scat. There's a beautiful sheep track right there. This is a path the sheep walk regularly on this mountain. Scouting for sheep is the same thing as hunting them. The only difference is I'm not gonna shoot it when I get there, but I'm trying to stalk as close as I can to any sheep. Any time I'm out, I'm gaining experience.

These are all sheep tracks against where sheep have laid scat. They're here. This is more of a summer scat when they're eating more succulent vegetation. In the winter, it'll look more like this. In wintertime, I'm seeing lots of sheep sign on this mountain, so I'm hopeful I might find some sheep up here. Thanks for looking good.