As a number of you are aware, GSCO indefinitely suspended recording of the Corsican mouflon a number of years ago. The reasons for this moratorium were varied but included, among others, the following issues and concerns:
- The name “Corsican Mouflon” was misleading and problematic, as these sheep occur on the island of Corsica, which does not allow hunting. A more precise reference to the sheep that have been previously recorded by GSCO would be Corsican-influenced mouflon occurring on the French mainland, or French Mainland Corsican Mouflon.
- There was a high level of disagreement and commercial competitiveness among outfitters and hunting agents as to which relatively small and isolated areas within the southern French mainland either contained purebred descendants originally transplanted from Corsica or those that might be highly influenced by those original transplants but found in adjacent areas.
- Some purebred Corsican mouflon originally imported from Corsica to the mainland were being bred and harvested within one or more enclosures and GSCO only records free-range harvested trophies.
- Some of the free-range areas in the southern French mainland that were the original site(s) for transplants from Corsica did not have sustainable hunting populations at the time of the moratorium. Government established hunting quotas for these game management units often comprised zero or just a few annual tags due to low populations. The causes for these low populations were attributed primarily to wolf predation and poor free-range habitat. A general feeling was also expressed by those close to the situation that there was a general lack of awareness for the plight of these sheep as well as a lack of appreciation for their trophy status. Thus, their relegation to the category of “wolf bait.”
