Giant bighorn ram won’t be recognized as Idaho record

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game won’t recognize as a state record a trophy bighorn sheep killed by a Nez Perce Tribe member the agency says was taken outside its hunting regulations.

But the Boone and Crockett Club not only recognizes the Rocky Mountain bighorn killed by Gary Sublett in 2016, it has invited him to its annual awards ceremony this summer in Missouri.

A treaty the Nez Perce Tribe signed with the U.S. Government in 1855 allows Sublett to hunt ancestral tribal areas in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Boone and Crockett says it recognizes Sublett’s ram killed in Hells Canyon because of the treaty and because the tribe has a management plan for sustainable hunting of bighorns.