This is more directed towards hybrid goat and sheep subtypes. What is the market for them? Are they increasing in popularity? It seems all I see on wildlife buyer nowadays is hybrid stuff. Not that I have anything directly against them, but when you start messing with T. Caspian Urial, Markhor, and Siberian Ibex which have very low numbers and a very high price in Texas....it just irks me. Those things are already expensive, and hybridizing them and making the numbers of pure ones dwindle through that doesn't help.

Any thoughts?

I don't breed hybrid ibex myself but this is the easiest and sometimes only way for people to get into the breeding of these animals.

As long as they call it what it is, people have a right to do what they want. If somebody wants to increase the value of some Corsicans by putting some TCU blood in them, fine.

What I have a real issue with is when people call a hybrid pure, or represent it as something it's not to try and fool uneducated buyers. That's dishonest at best when you look at the difference between pure and hybrid prices. You can not recreate 'pure' strains from hybrids, and this is where the hybridization leads - as long as it looks close enough, we call it pure. Hunters may or may not care, but breeders certainly should care.

Frankly, we need a registry for several of these species.

Very true. But where do you begin? I have even seen pictures of what were supposed to be Nubian Ibex in zoos that you could tell from the picture they were not pure.

it will be almost impossible i'd say don. here's my Nubian breeder. I call him a "pure Nubian"
but can I prove it?

Kobus, hybridizing shouldn't 'dilute' the numbers of pure breds if they are represented accurately. The bottleneck is the females and would think anyone with pure stock who did their research would keep their pure ewes/nannies on pure rams/billies. Sticking a TCU ram on a bunch of mouflon ewes doesn't dilute the remaining TCU population by itself, but the problem comes when one of those 50/50 (or 3/4, or 7/8, whatever) rams throws back to TCU traits and gets sold as pure and then put into a group of pure females. Then you did just taint a strain, as that breeder's going to unknowingly be selling hybrids as pure.

Don, I think you'd have to start one of two ways - 1) DNA, 2) get a group of reputable breeders together to develop a breed standard based on physical characteristics. Neither is perfect, but IMO would be better for preserving the integrity (and value) of some of these species

Then where do you or outfitters draw the line of representation? Looks?

I think most people who know goats can look at most goats and tell you if it's pure or not. but I know I for one try to buy all my breeding stock from people who can tell me about their animals going back a long long time.

Lance Clawson was going to do the DNA on his Nubian Ibex. I haven't ask how it is going. I guess like you said Txnrog you would have to get several people that had really good looking Ibex and go from there. I guess better yet go to the Middle east and start on some from their natural habitat. I have gotten Billies from Lance and Circle H which are said to bet pure. They look it. My Females are getting better every year but like you said they will never be pure. But I guess for hunting as long as the males have the look and the hunter is satisfies that is all that counts.

I am not against animal brokers, I use them. But, when you begin to spend a lot of money on ibex, some of these middle men will tell you anything to make a sale. I would much rather buy from a breeder that can show me the herd. I have seen too many times pictures passed around saying that these ibex are out of this certain billy, come to find out that billy had been dead for years. They just grabbed a picture off of the internet to try and sell these ibex. That stuff goes on quite a bit.

Arron, Love the knots on the horns

thanks. he's not quite 4.5 years old. Looking forward to what he looks like in 2-3 years.