Transhumance
25/09/21 00:53
It is cold in the high country above the place where I grew up. Overnight lows have sunk into the twenties and there has been snow in the high peaks and meadows. 50 years ago, when I was a teen, the sheep would have been trailed from the high country for about three weeks by the time the official first day of Autumn arrived. The sheep could sense a change in the weather and knew it was time for them to move. For about a century, sheep ranchers moved their sheep twice each year, trailing the herds up into the high country in the early summer and returning them to the lowland meadows at the end of the season. The actual distance the sheep walked was about 50 miles each way. They followed the existing road, gravel and dirt most of the way and spent their nights in the pastures of ranches along the way. Water was abundant and they were usually watered at the river that they were following to the high country or at tributary streams that entered the river along the way.
The sheep grazed on federal land, managed by the USDA Forest Service, on leases that were handed down in the family. In the valley where I grew up there were two families who had collected all of the leases for grazing sheep in the high country, so there were two herds that made the trip. If you happened to be going up or down the road during the days that they were trailing sheep, you had to carefully ease your vehicle through the herd, with the assistance of the herders and their dogs. Generally there was a single sheepherder who stayed in a sheep wagon with the sheep in the high country all summer long. That herder was supplied by regular visits, usually weekly, from the owner or a ranch hand who drove up bringing staple groceries and checked on the herder and the sheep.
In the time when I was a teen, there was very little predation of the herds. Wolves had been hunted out of the high country completely. A few grizzly bears remained, but sheepherders were allowed to kill any that came near the herds. A blast from a shotgun usually ran off any black bears that came near. The dogs kept their eyes on the sheep and warned the sheepherder of any dangers.
The practice finally died out in the 1970’s. It became impractical to trail the sheep because of a lack of available pastures to graze them overnight during the drive. A loading corral was established so that the sheep could be trucked most of the way, trailing only the last 15 or 20 miles. In the fall, they were trailed to the corral at the loading station and loaded into trucks for the trip back to the lowland pastures. That combined with low prices for wool and increased shipping costs to get the wool to market to decrease the number of sheep. Grazing sheep in the National Forest had always been controversial, with some people claiming that the sheep ate too close to the soil and that trailing them damaged the land. Gradually the permits were released, the herds downsized, the ranches diversified, and the practice stopped.
There are places in the world, however, where the practice of trailing sheep from location to location is still common. There is a fancy Latin term for the practice: transhumance. “Trans” means “across” and “humus” means “earth.” Transhumance is a form of pastoralism where animals move from summer highlands to winter lowlands and back again. There are areas where the practice has been going on for thousands of years.
It allows animals to take advantage of seasonal peaks in pastures and to avoid extreme temperatures.
In Spain the practice was abandoned around the time it ceased to be practiced in the mountain west of the United States. For about 50 years there was little moving of herds and when it was done the animals traveled by truck. Families who had practiced pastoralism for generations had to find new forms of employment. However, the practice is being revived in Spain these days. The end of transhumance in Spain had severe ecological impacts. Abandoned mountain pastures experienced biodiversity loss and heightened wildfire risk; lowlands suffers from overgrazing and trees stopped regenerating. With the lack of new trees, the lowland grasslands produced less feed to support the herds. Through the activism of herders and owners, Spain now has a network of legally protected drove roads for the movement of herds. The practice is gaining worldwide attention and Spain is being used as an example of a return to the practice of regular moving of herds of domestic animals.
The roads function as ecological corridors that allow the sharing of plants and wild animals as well as the domestic sheep. The native herbivores that once traveled from high to low lands no longer populate the region, so the sheep provide an important connection between the regions that helps diversify the plants along the way. It is estimated that each sheep transports as many as 5,000 seeds and fertilizes the land with manure each day.
Scientists are monitoring the land and the routes the animals take, measuring soil properties, conducting biodiversity surveys of flora and fauna and maintaining experimental control plots. It will take years of collecting data to provide evidence to support the expansion of drove roads and other infrastructure to support the practice, such as watering stations and road improvements, especially in urban areas. Researchers are, however, are encouraged by the effects of grazing on the reduction of fuels and decrease of wildfires. One study by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization suggest that improving grazing management of the world’s grasslands could sequester 409 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year - over 1% of human caused carbon releases. There is also evidence that the animals have better nutritional profiles. Sheep typically feed on resources that are not good for cropping and agriculture and turn them into food humans can digest and eat.
I doubt that the practice of herding sheep up and down the Boulder River in Sweetgrass County, Montana will return anytime soon, but it is worth noting that the practice is expanding in some parts of the world. Don’t look for sheepherders to use Latin vocabulary, however, I doubt if transhumance is going to become an everyday word among the sheep ranchers I know in my lifetime.
The sheep grazed on federal land, managed by the USDA Forest Service, on leases that were handed down in the family. In the valley where I grew up there were two families who had collected all of the leases for grazing sheep in the high country, so there were two herds that made the trip. If you happened to be going up or down the road during the days that they were trailing sheep, you had to carefully ease your vehicle through the herd, with the assistance of the herders and their dogs. Generally there was a single sheepherder who stayed in a sheep wagon with the sheep in the high country all summer long. That herder was supplied by regular visits, usually weekly, from the owner or a ranch hand who drove up bringing staple groceries and checked on the herder and the sheep.
In the time when I was a teen, there was very little predation of the herds. Wolves had been hunted out of the high country completely. A few grizzly bears remained, but sheepherders were allowed to kill any that came near the herds. A blast from a shotgun usually ran off any black bears that came near. The dogs kept their eyes on the sheep and warned the sheepherder of any dangers.
The practice finally died out in the 1970’s. It became impractical to trail the sheep because of a lack of available pastures to graze them overnight during the drive. A loading corral was established so that the sheep could be trucked most of the way, trailing only the last 15 or 20 miles. In the fall, they were trailed to the corral at the loading station and loaded into trucks for the trip back to the lowland pastures. That combined with low prices for wool and increased shipping costs to get the wool to market to decrease the number of sheep. Grazing sheep in the National Forest had always been controversial, with some people claiming that the sheep ate too close to the soil and that trailing them damaged the land. Gradually the permits were released, the herds downsized, the ranches diversified, and the practice stopped.
There are places in the world, however, where the practice of trailing sheep from location to location is still common. There is a fancy Latin term for the practice: transhumance. “Trans” means “across” and “humus” means “earth.” Transhumance is a form of pastoralism where animals move from summer highlands to winter lowlands and back again. There are areas where the practice has been going on for thousands of years.
It allows animals to take advantage of seasonal peaks in pastures and to avoid extreme temperatures.
In Spain the practice was abandoned around the time it ceased to be practiced in the mountain west of the United States. For about 50 years there was little moving of herds and when it was done the animals traveled by truck. Families who had practiced pastoralism for generations had to find new forms of employment. However, the practice is being revived in Spain these days. The end of transhumance in Spain had severe ecological impacts. Abandoned mountain pastures experienced biodiversity loss and heightened wildfire risk; lowlands suffers from overgrazing and trees stopped regenerating. With the lack of new trees, the lowland grasslands produced less feed to support the herds. Through the activism of herders and owners, Spain now has a network of legally protected drove roads for the movement of herds. The practice is gaining worldwide attention and Spain is being used as an example of a return to the practice of regular moving of herds of domestic animals.
The roads function as ecological corridors that allow the sharing of plants and wild animals as well as the domestic sheep. The native herbivores that once traveled from high to low lands no longer populate the region, so the sheep provide an important connection between the regions that helps diversify the plants along the way. It is estimated that each sheep transports as many as 5,000 seeds and fertilizes the land with manure each day.
Scientists are monitoring the land and the routes the animals take, measuring soil properties, conducting biodiversity surveys of flora and fauna and maintaining experimental control plots. It will take years of collecting data to provide evidence to support the expansion of drove roads and other infrastructure to support the practice, such as watering stations and road improvements, especially in urban areas. Researchers are, however, are encouraged by the effects of grazing on the reduction of fuels and decrease of wildfires. One study by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization suggest that improving grazing management of the world’s grasslands could sequester 409 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year - over 1% of human caused carbon releases. There is also evidence that the animals have better nutritional profiles. Sheep typically feed on resources that are not good for cropping and agriculture and turn them into food humans can digest and eat.
I doubt that the practice of herding sheep up and down the Boulder River in Sweetgrass County, Montana will return anytime soon, but it is worth noting that the practice is expanding in some parts of the world. Don’t look for sheepherders to use Latin vocabulary, however, I doubt if transhumance is going to become an everyday word among the sheep ranchers I know in my lifetime.
