By Dennis Taylor,
They move in unison, flowing in woolly, white waves across the grasslands, obeying a trio of sharp-eyed border collies who patrol the perimeter with short, lightning-quick bursts of speed.
Sheep aren’t exactly the rocket scientists of the animal kingdom, but the dogs — Pelusa, Choce and Duda — could probably explain the Pythagorean theorem to anybody who spoke dog.
“They’re unbelievably smart,” said Pete Yriarte, the 55-year-old Los Banos rancher who brought 1,200 head of sheep to graze in a meadow Saturday for Sheep Appreciation Day, a public event presented by the Bureau of Land Management. “The dogs have that natural instinct to herd things and push the sheep, and they absolutely love it. It’s born into them. The puppies learn by watching the older ones and they catch on right away. They’re so smart, and it doesn’t take very long before they’re ready to start working the fields themselves.”
Wandering through the middle of the herd, or lounging just a few feet outside, is much larger canine — a Great Pyrenees named Cowboy, who has a job of his own. Cowboy, who is snow-white, is chief of security, the bouncer, the dutiful bodyguard who waits confidently for a coyote or mountain lion to show its furry face.
“If any kind of predator tries to get near the herd, he’ll try to fend him off,” Yriarte said.
The dogs aren’t the only ones with a herding heritage. A sheepherder, Nielton Quinto, stands in the middle of the herd, wearing a white baseball cap and brown vest. He keeps track of the sheep with help from two or three alpha sheep — Pied Piper-types who wear a bell — and a few black-faced sheep who help the sheepherder count the herd. There is one black-face for every 10 white sheep, and if a black-face goes missing, most likely she didn’t go alone.
“The grazing helps us a lot, because, for one thing, it controls the thistle population. We can tell the sheepherders where we want the sheep to graze, and that’s where they’ll go,” said Tami Jaki, a BLM park ranger at Fort Ord National Monument. “A lot of the grass you’ll find out here is non-native. It has shorter roots, and the sheep will eat it and make more room for the bunch grasses, which are native to California. And their grazing is also reducing fire fuels.”A measly 86 words at the very end of the article isn't showing much appreciation to the sheep by this author. However, kudos to the BLM for sponsoring a day like this.
1 comment:
Why is it that Park Rangers either from the BLM or the Park Service are so ill-informed about grasses or anything else? If it's not in their Green Book then they make it up or the Book is in error. Not surprising. But the taxpayer get to pay big bucks for their "expertise".
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