2024 Banquet
Tanoan Country Club
10801 Academy Rd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
NM Wild Sheep Foundation Members and Friends. This is a reminder that on March 16th at Tanoan Country Club in Albuquerque, we will be having our annual
banquet from 6-9 pm.
2020 Banquet Postponed
Our original plan was to hold our 2020 banquet on May 9th. Well that plan was thrown under the bus by Covid-19. We have left the possibility open for a mid July banquet. However, we will most likely have to cancel until next year. We will keep everyone informed.
2019 Activities
Our Hunters
In 2019 we had 27 RMBHS and 28 DBHS ram tag hunters in New Mexico. All 55 hunters harvested a ram. 46 hunters were from New Mexico and 4 of those were NM women. Of special note was self guided Jason Mouttet, who took a great 196 4/8’ ram on Wheeler Peak. Jason was presented the Bronze Medal at the WSF Sheep Show in Reno, for harvesting the third largest RMBHS ram in North America for 2019.
Several other large RMBHS rams were taken in the Rio Grande Gorge, Wheeler Peak , and of all places, Turkey Creek in the Gila. Large DBHS were harvested in the Ladrones and San Andres Mountains.
The 2019 Raffles
Our 2019 raffles, which NMWSF conducts for NMDGF, took in $126,000. The split between RMBHS and DBHS raffle tickets was close to 50/50. Most notable was that 20% of the tickets were purchased by New Mexico residents. In fact the DBHS tag was drawn by a life long New Mexican. It has become apparent that NM sportspeople are taking increasing interest in hunting BHS in our state.
Other 2019 Activities
A number of NMWSF members attended the Sheep Show in Reno in February. We also participated in the Chapters and Affiliates Summit meeting in Las Vegas.
One of the highlights at the Sheep Show was a Wounded Warrior RMBHS hunt, donated by one of our members, Will Durrett, who owns the Pacheco Ranch in the Dry Cimarron area. Will donated part of the auction proceeds to NMWSF, which we will use on a NM BHS conservation project.
As we have done for several years we sponsored 9 youth Pronghorn hunters and 10 youth Elk hunters in the NMDGF Youth Hunter Education program. We also provided each hunter with a NMWSF logo cap.
Our 2019 banquet in April, 2019 drew 185 attendees and we actually raised a bit of money for the first time. It was great fun and most folks had a great time with our bucket raffle, ram scoring contest and our generous door prizes. We want to thank all those who donated bucket raffle items and door prizes.
In October, we partnered with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers for a “Game Tasting Night” at The Street Institute in Albuquerque. The evening included gourmet cooked Desert Bighorn Sheep Steak Biriyani, Bighorn Meatloaf and Speckled Belly Goose with a green Chile
Beer was provided by the Canteen Brewery and Caitlin Ruhl of the NMDGF presented a program on Bighorn Sheep Conservation in New Mexico. It was a sensational event. So sensational that we had a second event in January of this year.