Geist supports the idea that selectively culling animals with larger antlers/horns (such as deer in the majority of this article, but also with the rams mentioned) results in decreased body mass and horn size, but merely disagrees that these changes are permanent, which any logically thinking person could conclude. (Support provided by the Frisina’s.)

In any case, this effect has been occurring for thousands of years – look at the selective breeding of dairy/beef cattle for those that produce the largest quantities of milk, or those with the most muscle. Or are these effects made up too?

Recording the horn sizes and body weights of rams over 30 years is a good way to see how the environment is impacting these species, and obviously killing the largest of the species before their breeding season will increase selection pressures favoring the smaller of the species due to there being less genes for these large traits in the gene pool. Whilst these changes are most certainly not permanent, the reversal would require the elimination of hunting from the area for a period of decades.