Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
SHEPHERD STORY REVISITED
Predator-Friendly Becky Weed and Dave Tyler
I
N THE 1980
S
,
Becky Weed and her husband, Dave Tyler, started a small
sheep fl ock on a Montana farm, but within a short time they lost 20 percent
of their fl ock to coyotes. “At fi rst, we called the Animal Damage Control agent,
and he trapped and shot a couple of coyotes,” Becky said. “I knew this couldn't
be a long-term solution. We probably couldn't trap and shoot all the coyotes that
came through, even if we wanted to, but I didn't really want to do it anyway. I
began reading about guardian animals, and decided that was probably a better
approach.”
The fi rst guardian animals Becky and Dave bought were a pair of burros.
The burros were cheap, and they worked well, though sometimes one of the
burros would get annoyed with the lambs and kick at them. Becky never saw
him actually land a connecting blow, but it worried her a little. Then, due to
changes in Dave's job, they had to sell all the critters and move. In 1993, they
moved back to a farm and started a new fl ock. This time, they decided to try
guardian llamas.
The llamas did exceptionally well for several years, but then “they just
stopped paying attention, and I've now heard that from other people,” Becky
told me. “So, now we have gotten a couple of dogs as guardians, and they have
been extremely successful. We've been really happy with them.”
Becky and Dave were instrumental in starting a cooperative of “Predator-
Friendly” ranchers. “We knew if we wanted to make it with sheep, we had
to carve out an alternative marketing niche. The Predator-Friendly approach
brought ranchers and environmentalists together. The group stressed issues like
open space and habitat protection, economic viability for family farmers and
ranchers, and practicing agriculture that protected these values,” Becky told me.
Becky and Dave became certifi ed organic producers early on and used that
experience to develop a similar approach to Predator-Friendly, helping establish
a certifi cation program that raises recognition with consumers. But Becky also
told me that the reintroduction of the wolf to the northern tier of the Rocky
Mountain states has changed the playing fi eld, as wolf predation can be much
more diffi cult to control with nonlethal techniques.
In fact, she and Dave sold their fl ock in late 2008, taking a sabbatical for
a year or so. They did this in part because Becky is spending so much of her
