|
Sheep
Trailing in the High Country
|
by Geri Lasater
Geri Lasater is a 25-year
resident of Bayfield, a teacher in the Bayfield schools, and one of the
organizers of the Sheep Trailing and Heritage Days Festival. She is married to
a sheep rancher.
The full moon reveals a sheep
wagon in a clearing among the pines, smoke rising from its chimney. Smells of
cedar and coffee waft from the wood stove inside. About 2,000 ewes and lambs
are quietly bedded nearby. Three days ago, Casey Brown and four herders left
his home in Ignacio, CO, 28 miles away. They trailed, or walked, the sheep up
the highway sleeping in the sheep camp along the way, and arrived at Transfer
Park last night. Today they will go into the forest where they will spend the
summer, eventually reaching elevations over 13,000 ft.
After coffee and biscuits, Casey
readies the panniers. He packs salt, staples, the bedrolls, and checks the
breakaway knots to the four mules. Once again, his ritual of packing supplies
into the herder begins, a 2-day task that will be done once every week for the
months of July, August, and September. Every week the camp and sheep are moved
to rotate the grazing areas.
The yellow dawn comes and almost
as if cued by a conductor, the sheep rise from the bedding grounds like a wave
of wool and move toward the forest. Except for the jingle of a few bells,
campers sleep undisturbed in a campground nearby, unaware of the passing herd.
Both sheep and herders disappear into the aspen and pine trees. "Learn to
trust the sheep," Casey says, "they know where they are going."
After fifty years in the business, he should know. Riding his mare, he leads
the pack string and disappears too.
Casey's family is one of only
three sheep ranching families left who carry on this trailing tradition. In the
1800's, sheep and cattle were trailed up into the forests above Bayfield,
Colorado, for summer pasture. Native Americans, homesteaders, and immigrant
herders moved their animals from southern Colorado and northern New Mexico into
the high mountains for the summer. In the fall when the animals came down, the
herders often did not know when they had reached New Mexico because there were
no fences. Just as was done over a hundred years ago, Casey will trail his
sheep home to Ignacio at the end of September when the lambs are sold, then
trail the ewes down into New Mexico for the winter.
He laments the demise of small
farm families and the decline in sheep numbers, especially because sheep are so
beneficial for the environment. He often invites people to ride his range and
see for themselves the benefits of sheep grazing. Once a college professor with
a Master's Degree in Animal Science, he explains that sheep foraging helps to
create and maintain biological diversity, to control noxious weeds, and to
provide a low-tech "fire fighting" tool because sheep eat undergrowth
that provides fuel for fires. Sheep grazing can also be used to manage
vegetation, reduce soil erosion, and because the rotation direction is
alternated each summer, the grasses remain vigorous since they are eaten at a
different time each season. Furthermore, because his sheep enjoy a wide variety
of plants in their diet, he maintains that lambs raised in Rocky Mountains are
the best tasting anywhere.
Believing that this trailing
tradition is a unique attraction, the community of Bayfield created the Sheep
Trailing and Heritage Days Festival last year to honor its farming and ranching
heritage. Spectators are invited to come and watch the actual trailing home to
fall pasture as the sheep parade through the main street of town. After the
trailing, there will be spinning and weaving, fiber arts, shearing, music,
rodeo events, children's games, cultural dancing, sheep dog trials, food and
much more for the whole family in the park. The trailing and festival will be
Saturday, September 29, 2001. On Friday night, September 28th, the public is
invited to the high school to hear local old timers tell stories about the good
old days. Last year's festival was a huge success, and organizers are preparing
for another great event this fall.
For further information contact glasater@frontier.net or
josie@frontier.net
|
Who Really
Needs Sheep Ranching?
|
Open space, wildlife and the
associated habitat, and a myriad of sheep industry by-products are used by the
general population, yet many television spots influencing public opinion
broadcast a skewed view of the value of western sheep ranching with blatantly
manipulative titles such as "The Fleecing of America". Public
perception of western sheep operations is often a vague combination of old
range war movies and "feature stories" on the nightly news, resulting
in negative stereotypes. But how much wildlife habitat is provided by the
average suburbanite with a big screen television and the requisite SUV in the
family garage? A bird feeder is a noble gesture, but its backyard presence is
not a significant contribution in answer to this question. The average home
site has already successfully destroyed the native habitat and displaced its
wildlife permanently.
Bonnie Kline, Executive Director
of the Colorado Wool Growers Association, has many good answers to the question
"who really needs sheep ranching" in a state which has seen dramatic
population growth over the past 10-15 years:
- Sheep foraging habits help create and maintain biological diversity. For
example, early summer sheep grazing can provide deer with higher protein
vegetation during critical winter months. Consequently, the deer sharing the
sheep grazing habitat can have heavier than average body weights, be in better
physical condition, and breed earlier than deer feeding in ungrazed areas.
- The US Forest Service uses "fire fighting" sheep as a low-tech,
low-cost approach to undergrowth control on national forests. This approach
benefits the forest environment by eliminating the need for herbicides; it
benefits the Forest Service by reducing the need for costly manual clearing;
and benefits adjacent communities that are at risk from wildfires.
- Sheep grazing can be an effective biological control program to increase
conifer growth, and is far less costly than chemical or mechanical means of
vegetation control. In the United States and Canada, sheep grazing has helped
regenerate ponderosa pine, douglas fir, radiata pine, sugar pine, and western
hemlock forests.
- Noxious weeds are a substantial threat to private, BLM and Forest Service
land; they displace native plant species and destroy wildlife habitat. Sheep
are unique in that they readily consume plants that other animals avoid or find
toxic. As a result, sheep are used to control many noxious weeds. Sheep grazing
can successfully control leafy spurge, spotted knapweed, fringed sagewort,
kudzu, oxeye daisy, and tall larkspur.
- In shrub-dominated watersheds and riparian areas, sheep grazing can be used
to manage vegetation and to reduce soil erosion. By clearing brush, sheep
grazing at low to moderate intensity promotes growth of perennial grasses that
enhance watersheds.
- Wool is wonderful by-product of sheep production. The history of wool
begins about 10,000 years ago with our ancestors living in the Mesopotamian
plain and using sheep for three basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter. The
warmth of wool clothing and the mobility of sheep allowed mankind to spread
civilization far beyond the warm climate of the Mesopotamia.
- Throughout time, pioneers to outdoor enthusiasts have long recognized the
value of wool. Wool garments are excellent protection against hypothermia. Wool
is a hygroscopic fiber which allows it to absorb moisture and perspiration.
Thus, a wool garment will keep a layer of dry air next to the skin, which in
turn helps hold in body heat. As wool absorbs atmospheric moisture, the
hydrogen bond of water is broken and chemically reacts with molecules in the
wool to generate heat.
- Sheep by-products are used in the manufacturing of many consumer items that
are enjoyed by, and contribute to the health and convenience of people from all
walks of life. Instead of receiving these by-products from a renewable, natural
resource, would you or the environment be better off if these products had to
be derived from a chemical manufacturing process? Sheep producers are proud to
provide consumers with high quality food, fiber, and a myriad of other products
by utilizing renewable natural resources.
The flock of
sheep is sold:
Check them out at the Ewe Revue!
|
More than 40 sheep have been
sold for the Ewe Revue, a Rochester, Michigan, community-wide public arts
event. The only catch: these aren't live sheep. Each life-sized sheep is made
of fiberglass and designed by a local artist to celebrate the history, pride
and spirit of downtown Rochester, a northern Detroit suburb. The Ewe Revue will
kick off June 9th, 2001, with a BAA-B-Q in downtown Rochester from 12-8 p.m.
Eat delicious food, stroll through historic downtown, dance to live music and
admire the sheep, which will be displayed throughout the downtown area.
The Ewe Revue is a project
of the Rochester Downtown Development Authority, in conjunction with Rochester
Downtown Promotions & Marketing Partnership. The sheep are sponsored by
local and national business owners and will be on display until September 2001.
For more information, please call (248)656-0060 or visit
www.theewerevue.com.
Courtesy of
American Sheep Industry Assn
Wear Wool
1,000 Penguins Can't Be Wrong!
|
The penguins down under are
looking sharp these days in their new wool jerseys. Some 1,000 of Australia's
fairy penguins are sporting 15-inch jerseys that cover them from neck to ankle,
preventing them from preening and ingesting poisonous oil from recent oil
spills off the coast of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Following the
spills, the Tasmanian Conservation Trust requested that the penguins receive
the wool jerseys, which are made from scraps of wool. "They (the jerseys)
have come from everywhere, even as far away as Japan. Someone in New York asked
for a pattern but we haven't received it yet," Jo Castle, a spokeswoman
for the Trust said. The patterns are made by knitters, many of whom are elderly
ladies in nursing homes, who design the jerseys to reflect their favorite
football team. Some knitters also have matched the penguin's natural colors by
knitting woolly tuxedos.
Courtesy of
American Sheep Industry Assn
Sampling Fiber of Individual Animals
Understanding Micron Reports
Darkroom in Fyberspace
Links in Fyberspace
Article Archive
Sample Form
Sheep Camp
Main Page
Email Us
Graphics and/or stories may not
be copied
or reproduced without permission.
© 1996-2002 All rights reserved.
|
| Routt County Woolens,
LLC is introducing the 2001 Limited Edition Herder's Heritage Blanket,
inspired by sheep camps found throughout Northwest Colorado's rich summer sheep
range. |
|
|
Dio
Choperena, the AT&T Wireless Shepherd
|
| Long
time California sheep producer/shepherd gains fame as "AT&T
Shepherd" Ever
since AT&T Wireless Services launched its million dollar plus advertising
campaign last spring featuring a shepherd and his sheep, ASI has received
questions and calls from producers wondering, among other things, if the ads
were filmed in the United States and who was the actor playing the shepherd.
Well, the wireless-using shepherd is no actor, at least not by trade. He is
none other than former shepherd and California sheep producer Dio Choperena,
whose operation is in northern California's Tomales Bay area.
As the story goes, Dio was
"discovered" last Easter Sunday by an AT&T talent scout when the
scout stopped in a general store in the town of Tomales and asked if there were
any sheep producers in the area. A shopper in the store, who was acquainted
with Dio, overheard the conversation and referred the scout to Dio, who just
happened that day to be celebrating the holiday in a local pub down the street
from store. The scout met Dio, did a film test and knew immediately he had
found the perfect shepherd for the multi-million dollar advertising campaign.
Choperena and his wife, Monica, attended ASI's 2001 convention in Reno, where
they were a hit with convention attendees, some of whom had their photo taken
with Choperena and others getting his autograph on napkins or on the back of
convention name badges.
Basque Roots
Choperena's sheep roots go back to
his childhood in Spain's Basque country, where he was one of 10 children on a
family sheep operation. He says from a very young age he had dreams of being a
shepherd. He realized that dream in 1973 when at age 17 he accepted a job as a
shepherd on a Wyoming ranch even though he had never visited the United States.
Choperena, who spoke no English at the time, said the move was difficult even
though he did come to the United States with a fellow Spaniard who also worked
on the same Wyoming ranch as a shepherd.
"The first year was scary. I
was lonesome. I missed my family and friends," Choperena said. But things
got better, and Choperena spent six years on the Wyoming operation. During that
time, one of his brothers moved to California to also work on a sheep ranching
operation. One year, his brother broke his leg, and Choperena traveled to
California to help the operation's owner, George Nicholas, who was working at
the time to develop the Polypay breed. Nicholas liked Choperena's work, and
following Choperena's return to Wyoming, kept calling him to come work for him
in Califonia.
Choperena finally consented and
left Wyoming for California, following which he worked for Nicholas for 16
years, helping him on his sheep operation, including helping Nicholas develop
the Polypay breed. Following the deaths of Nicholas and his wife some nine
years ago, Choperena acquired some of Nicholas' sheep. "His (Nicholas')
son and I always got along well and worked out an agreement for me to obtain
some of the sheep," Choperena said. Choperena, whose sheep herd once
totaled 2,000, now raises 700 head of Polypay sheep in northern California.
New Found Fame
As for his new side gig as a
commercial actor, Choperena seems unaffected by the fame and could not have
been more personable and charming in his discussions with sheep producers and
others in attendance at ASI's convention. In fact, he showed a bit of his shy
side when he was formally introduced to convention attendees. However, he also
showed his sense of humor when making a few remarks at the ASI RAMS PAC
reception, and had everyone chuckling as he explained how he became involved in
the AT&T advertising campaign.
To date, Choperena said he has
been involved in the production of 12 AT&T Wireless commercials and
advertisements, produced mostly in California settings. He said the experience
has been interesting, although he did admit to being a "little
nervous" when the first commercial was filmed.
For those unfamiliar with the
advertising campaign, which includes television, print and radio, the
television commercials feature a shepherd taking his sheep into settings where
you wouldn't normally find sheep, or any other animals, including a restaurant,
a grocery store and a taxi cab. Choperena said the other actors in the
commercials are sometimes afraid of the sheep, which Choperena refers to as
"Hollywood" sheep. "The sheep are a Columbia/Rambouillet cross
breed, and they basically are working sheep, as they go from commercial to
commercial or appear in movies," he said. The sheep have been known to
munch on parts of the production sets, such as the contents of one of the
dining actor's plate in the restaurant commercial and food items on the shelves
in the grocery store commercial.
For those who enjoy the
popular commercials, you can look forward to seeing more of Choperena in the
AT&T Wireless ads, as he has signed a two-year contract. Does he ever get
recognized from his work in the commercials? "Sometimes I get
recognized," he said. "During the ASI convention, I was walking
through the casino when a man walked up to me and said, ‘did anyone ever
tell you that you look like the shepherd in the AT&T ads?'"
Courtesy of
American Sheep Industry Assn
|
|
|
