Shepherds of the Northwest

Roger Brunt
Steelheader Contributor
  Wanted: Men and women interested in earning $2000 to $4000 per month, living and working in wilderness areas of the Northwest US and Canada. Must be in excellent health with a strong desire to live "Back of the Beyond." Must love dogs and animals, and be able to work with little or no supervision. Training provided.
  If this sounds like that dream job you have yearned for all your life, read on. Jobs like this do exist. In fact, there is a crying need for qualified people as an ancient profession gets a new lease on life throughout the Pacific Northwest due to changing logging practices.
  For the past 20 years or so, large flocks of sheep, often 1000 animals and more, have been used to control vegetation that competes with replanted seedlings in clear-cut logging areas. The people who look after these sheep, modern-day shepherds, are in great demand because of their highly specialized skills. Not only must they know how to handle sheep, and the dogs that guard and herd them, they must also be self reliant and able to look after themselves in isolated areas, often miles away from the nearest help if anything goes wrong. Whether it's moving camp from one logged-off area to another, mending a broken corral or a broken-down pickup truck, or dealing with a bear or cougar attack, this is no job for the faint of heart, and not everybody can do it. "I know I couldn't do it. I'd hear a bear behind every tree," said Betty Atkinson, coordinator of continuing education at Okanagan College in the early 1990s where one of the first Shepard Training Programs was offered. Why Sheep?
  Until quite recently, using sheep to control unwanted vegetation in logging areas was considered strictly experimental. But in the mid-to-late-1980s, there was a sudden surge of interest in this method of forest management, mainly because of public concern for the environment.
  When it comes to controlling encroaching vegetation, sheep are much more environmentally friendly than herbicides. They are also cheaper than brush cutting using manual labor, and more efficient. The small seedlings are hard to see in the often-thick new growth of the clear-cuts. Human weed cutters can accidentally cut or trample seedlings because the tree planters do not follow any predictable pattern. Where they plant depends on the terrain, soil conditions, and how they might be feeling on any particular day.
  Using sheep solves that problem. Sheep naturally graze on weeds, and any grasses planted to prevent erosion. For the most part, sheep leave conifer seedlings alone. They are not like goats, that would eat the conifer seedlings first, or cattle, that would trample the seedlings as they feed. By the time the sheep have finished grazing, the seedlings get more light, more rain, with less competition for nutrients. As well, in the spring, when the snow melts, the seedlings do not have to force their way through a mat of fallen fireweed which, conveniently, happens to be the sheep's favorite (and most nutritious) food.
 Herbicides are cheaper, and only have to be applied every two to three years, as opposed to grazing sheep twice per season for two years, or once per season for three years, but the public opposition to chemicals, especially in watersheds supplying water for human consumption, more than makes up for the extra costs.

Spin-off Benefits:
  There are spin-off benefits too. One of the people instrumental in pioneering these techniques is Mary Marriott, of Falkland in south-central British Columbia. She has raised sheep for years, been a sheepherder in the mountains herself, and a supplier of flocks of sheep for other shepherds. As well, she served on the British Columbia Sheep Federation's training committee for new shepherds for three years in the early 1990s.
  " When the sudden interest in using sheep for grazing clear-cuts began," Mary told me, "we at the B.C. Sheep Federation saw not only an opportunity for farmers and ranchers to earn additional income from having their sheep do what they had to do anyway-eat-but we also saw an opportunity to create local employment. By training new shepherds, we knew that the sheep owners would feel better entrusting their flocks of animals to people they knew had gone through a proper training program. If they were local people who they already knew, it would be even better."

The problems:
  One of the limitations to implementing the sheep-grazing program was a shortage of trained dogs, and a shortage of trained shepherds, although the interest was certainly there. Organizers of one of the first training courses, held in Armstrong in south-central British Columbia in the early 1990s, were stunned by the flood of applicants, some from as far away as Scotland and New Zealand. The course attracted 235 applicants, although there was only room for 15 students.
  Other courses attracted similar interest. For several years, Kootenay College, in southern B.C., offered a shepherd training course that ran for eight weeks in the classroom, and nine weeks working with sheep farmers on host farms across the province. Similar courses were offered at Olds College in Alberta, where many of the largest flocks of sheep used in the clear-cuts are located.
Wildlife Interaction:
From the perspective of those who view wilderness areas mainly for their wildlife values, one of the major concerns besides guarding the sheep from potential predators, is making sure the sheep do not introduce diseases to wildlife. To counteract this, the sheep are vaccinated with an "eight-way " vaccine and treated, if necessary, for pinkeye and sore mouth, diseases common to sheep that can be contracted by wildlife. Before they are brought to the mountains they are inspected by a government veterinarian for foot rot and any other problems, and vaccinated for caseous lymphadenistris, a disease of the lymph glands.
  Once in the mountains, special care is taken to guard against the sheep causing damage to streams and lakeshores, especially in watersheds with high fish values, or where the water is also used for human consumption. "When we are in the mountains," Mary Marriott told me, "shepherds must exercise the same concerns that any prudent manager of range land would be responsible for. As well, we often have specific requirements written into our contracts by the Environmental Department, depending on the terrain and local conditions."

Interaction with Predators:
  Another limitation to herding sheep in wilderness areas prior to the 1980s was the heavy loss from predators, sometimes as high as 10 per cent of the flock. In 1979, according to the US Department of Agriculture, predators in that country alone killed 1,294,100 sheep.
  This began to change in 1976 when, during meetings with sheep industry leaders in the US, the Winrock International Livestock Research and Training Centre in Arkansas began to investigate the use of little-known (in North America) breeds of dogs used specifically to guard and protect livestock. These dogs are not the same as herd dogs, like the Border collies, Kelpies and New Zealand Hunt-aways, that have traditionally been used by shepherds for hundreds of years. They are livestock-guarding dogs, bred in the mountains of Europe-Italy, Yugoslavia, France, Hungary, Poland and Turkey-- for the sole purpose of guarding and defending livestock, usually sheep. These Old World breeds-- Komondors, Akbash, Shar Planinetzs, Maremmas, Anatolian Shepherds--are sheep-sized, sheep-coloured, and sheep-shaped. They are heavyset, weighing from 80 to 150 pounds, with dropped ears, and shaggy off-white coats. Their nature is placid and, for the most part, they are unresponsive to human interaction. The pups play with each other, but will not chase a stick or a ball. They lick sheep faces in food-begging gestures; there are even photographs of pups suckling from ewes. In short, they are dogs that prefer sheep to people and, when the sheep are attacked, they respond aggressively, as if protecting "their own."
  Mary Marriott describes what happens when a predator, often one or more coyotes, approaches a flock of sheep being guarded by these dogs. "Usually," says Mary, "everything will be quiet, and often the dogs will be asleep. Suddenly, one or more dogs will perk up its ears and start running and baying into the bush. Very seldom do we ever see the predator-they never even get that close."
  And it's no wonder the predators disperse so quickly. Mary told me that one of her dogs, an Akbash, from Turkey, standing flat-footed in the house could rest its chin on her dining room table. A dog of that size, weighing 150 pounds, she estimated, could make short work of a coyote, and even successfully fight off a cougar or a bear.
  By 1981, The Livestock Dog Project, as it came to be known, was keeping records on 300 guard dogs, all descended from eight pups brought from Yugoslavia and Italy. There were failures, as farmers and ranchers learned how best to work with the dogs, but amazing success stories too. In the mountains of Colorado, a Shar guard dog and a Maremma together guarded 1000 sheep. According to the rancher, they paid for themselves many times over the first year by chasing off coyotes. "Without them," said the rancher, "we would have lost 100 head or more to coyotes. Instead, we lost only two to coyotes this year. Those 100 sheep were potentially worth $10,000." Here in British Columbia, Mary Marriott agrees that guard dogs have made a remarkable difference. "I would say that the use of guard dogs makes a 100 per cent difference," says Mary. ""There are half a dozen breeds of guard dogs that the shepherds use, and with these dogs protecting the flocks, predation goes right down to almost zero." There was more proof, too that the dogs were efficient. Mark Green, from Prince George, was hired by the government to inspect areas where the sheep had been grazing to see if there was any evidence of sheep kills. He never found one.

The Life:
  The life of a shepherd is demanding. Moving 1000 or more sheep up steep mountain terrain to forage at dawn is no easy task. Depending on the specific contract, the sheep that are available are always ewes, and sometimes their lambs, which must weigh more than 60 pounds before they can be used in the clear-cuts. Rams are not used. Besides the wear and tear they would put on the ewes, the sheep are normally in the mountains from late June until September, too early to breed the flocks, which have a gestation period of five months. Sometimes all the sheep in these large flocks come from one farm, sometimes they are gathered from as many as 10 different farms and ranches, often from as far away as Alberta and Saskatchewan, where prairie ranchers keep more sheep, in larger flocks.
  The same schedule goes on, with minor variation, seven days a week from late June until October. Normally, two or three people live and work with each flock of sheep. Shepherds live in camp trailers, and haul water, and occasionally hay, for the sheep, plus their own supplies, as well as food and water for the dogs. Mobile corrals are used whenever the flocks must be contained.
  Each day, the sheep are herded onto the slopes as early as 5:00 a.m., where they feed for three or four hours; they then either lay down on the slopes or are herded to holding pens for a mid-day break, where they are looked over, and any health concerns are noted and dealt with. Then the sheep are moved back to feed on the slopes from mid-afternoon until dusk.
  Every two or three days, the entire flock is moved to a new area. Depending on local conditions, and terms of specific contracts, some flocks of sheep are corralled at night; others are herded into a lantern-lit protected area and left out under the protection of the guard dogs, usually with a shepherd keeping an eye on them. The advantage to keeping the sheep on the slopes overnight is that their hooves do not create a large area of chewed up ground, covered with the manure that 1000 animals corralled together overnight, can create. The disadvantage is the sheep are more subject to predation, or dispersal if they become frightened.