Dear HCN,
Lisa Jones’ cover article
in the Jan. 31, 2000 High Country News essays
the travails Lyle McNeal has encountered with his Churro sheep.
While I can’t judge the accuracy of the whole article, the portion
I have personal knowledge of is just plain wrong! The writer states
that Dr. McNeal’s sheep were used by federal scientists who
welcomed the sheep “only because they could help … determine
whether male or female coyotes ate more sheep.” Absolutely not
so.
I’m one of those federal scientists. Briefly,
we offered to pasture Lyle McNeal’s sheep as a favor to him, and
only after he asked. Our sole condition for managing his sheep
using our resources and personnel through an entire summer grazing
season was that we would not engage in active, lethal coyote
control. Rather, we would test a new non-lethal method, as part of
a federal program to develop alternative depredation control
strategies.
What we wanted to know is whether
coyotes without puppies were less likely to kill sheep – not
whether one sex or the other kills sheep, since not surprisingly,
most any coyote can kill sheep. We surgically sterilized captured
coyotes in experimental territories and released them. Coyotes
captured in control territories were not sterilized before release.
Sterile coyotes both maintained their territories and killed far
fewer sheep than controls. In fact, during the first summer (1998),
five sterile packs killed only one lamb, while six control packs
killed 11. During the second summer (1999), four sterile packs
killed only three lambs, while eight control packs killed 22.
Sterilization reduced depredation by about 80
percent.
To summarize: Churro sheep were only
used in 1998. Twelve lambs, not 37, were killed. The Churro flock
was saved from slaughter, the sheep were pastured and fattened for
a whole summer at no cost to Dr. McNeal, and valuable data were
collected that will help develop new, effective and non-lethal
methods of depredation management. Not a bad deal. So, I have to
wonder, just how accurate is the rest of the
article?
Russ
Mason
Logan,
Utah
Dr. Mason is a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Utah State University and leader of a WS field station in Logan, Utah, that focuses on the development of nonlethal methods of coyote management.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline About those Churro sheep.
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