‘Wild sheep’ numbers St Kilda

[Mungo]

The first study on Soay sheep was by Peter Jewell, from 1959 to 1967 not 1930s and there have been many more since run by various groups.
I also know 100% that Soay sheep were shot on the islands in the 1960s and 70s.

Correct. Peter Jewell did the first work on Kilda, but was unable to transform it into a sustained long term project of marked individuals. After he (and John Morton Boyd and Peter Grubb) finished, there was low level somewhat haphazard monitoring of the population through the 70s and early 80s.

It was Clutton-Brock who had the insight to realise that the real value lay in a project spanning life times, with marked individuals. More critically, he had the political nous and fund raising skill to make that happen. He got the project as it now exists going in 1985, and it’s run with a consistent protocol ever since.

 

[countrryboy]

Wot I find completely ironic and hypocritical is they moan about us shooting all manner of things from deer to foxes or even Cyril? the lion in Africa.
How the hell do they think most wild animals die in the wild? Of old age?
Starvation yes caused by old age as there teeth get worn out, an deer could starve to death in a field full of grass if teeth gone
But it's still starvation and a horrible way to die.

While it's not nice to see a lot of animals starve to death at the same time, and normally I would say they need culled.
But with the important scientific background probably not the right choice on this occasion.

And was said earlier in thread surely this is the ultimate rewinding experiment and now they want u to intervene, surely the oppisate of rewilding

 

[Mungo]

A little extra context, given that this appears to be gaining media traction.

You will see claims that the Soay sheep were 'farmed' prior to the people leaving the island in 1930, and this is being used as the justification for calling them 'feral' rather than wild, and therefore the justification for saying there is a duty of care.

This is not the case. In 1930, the Soay sheep were restricted to the small island of Soay itself (hence the name of the breed). Soay is extremely difficult to access - really only possible in very calm weather, and certainly not somewhere people were going to systematically. The available records indicate that, at most, the islanders visited sporadically, opportunistically catching what they could for meat and wool. There are no records of any form of active husbandry or herd management - essentially, they were hunted like a wild animal, not farmed. The genetic data suggest that the sheep on Soay had been there for at least 1500 years, probably more - and are more closely aligned with mouflon than with modern domestic breeds.

There were sheep on the main island (Hirta), but there were from much more modern breeds. When the islanders were removed, they tried to take as many as they could - in fact, used sheep to partly pay for passage. There were a few left, but these were all shot in the following years, and were all gone by about 1933. Following that, animals were transferred from Soay and released onto Hirta. So these sheep are not just abandoned farm animals.