Posted on 11/28/2009 4:13:30 PM PST by missycocopuffs
Reporting from Camp Hale, Colo. - As soon as Renee Legro saw the sheep, she screamed.
The herd, 1,300 strong, has been coming for 30 years to graze in this valley on the backside of the Continental Divide. But as Colorado has become an adventure sports destination, the once-empty valley has filled with hikers, campers and mountain bikers like Legro, and she was about to tragically embody the collision of the old West with the new.
Legro, 33, screamed because she knew what came with the herd -- guard dogs. Shortly after she rolled down a hill and came upon the sheep, a dog leaped at her, locked its jaws on her hip and yanked her off her bike.
A second dog pounced as she fell. The two enormous canines, powerful enough to fend off bears, tore at her until her cries drew two campers who drove them off. The emergency-room doctor lost count of how many stitches she required.
To Legro and her husband, Steve, there was one person responsible -- Sam Robinson. One of a dwindling number of sheepherders in Colorado's mountains, Robinson, 54, turned to guard dogs a decade ago, after the state banned the use of traps to prevent mountain lions, coyotes and bears from destroying herds.
"We don't have any other option," Robinson said.
The Legros see things differently. In their years of hiking, biking and skiing the magnificent open spaces near Vail, they have fled from ranchers' dogs several times. "I cannot bring my dog up to the forest and let it run wild and attack people," said Steve Legro, 37. "Neither should anyone else."
They wanted Robinson charged with a crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It is not a lack of compassion it is a lack of sympathy. There is a very big difference between the two. I have a great deal of compassion for her ignorance and hope she grows out of it. Ignorance leads to a whole chain of events that creates suffering for a lot of people and animals. This is a good example.
Her ignorance led to her being attacked by two well trained sheep guard dogs. She then got reinforcement of her ignorance which led to those two dogs being removed from their jobs. That probably doesn't bode well for them. The herder lost 26% of his flock. A lot of suffering for him. A lot of suffering for all those dead sheep ripped apart by coyotes.
Ignorance proliferates suffering in geometric proportions.
Here is what you can’t seem to comprehend: A band of grazing sheep can spread out over many acres, 20-40 easily. There is one “professional Peruvian sheep herder” for each band. He has 2-3 herding dogs and a few livestock guardian dogs. The herding dogs stay with the “professional Peruvian sheep herder” until given a command to do something. The livestock guardian dogs think they are actual sheep and they circulate among the band, watching for danger and threats. A screaming high speed surprise in viewed as a threat and the dogs neutralized the threat. The “professional Peruvian sheep herder” might have been a half mile away watching that side of the band. His job is to herd the sheep, but while grazing, there is less herding and more suggesting the desired direction. So the “professional Peruvian sheep herder” was on the job, and the livestock guardian dogs were on the job, and the woman was stupid for screaming and rushing the sheep.
If I went to the big city and stepped in front of a bus, city people would have no problem calling me stupid.
Oh yeah, that’s why I said “meet”. Perhaps I should have said “formally introduced”!
;-P
She “screamed” and “came upon the sheep.” It is unneighborly to harass livestock—even on an open range. By her metropolitan legalisms to expose the sheep to predators, she caused the shepherds to lose a large part of their flock later. It’s not nice to have a bicycle race through an area where a herd of sheep is grazing.
People move onto the Range from cities and tailgate elderly residents over passes. They rev their engines and honk at cattle on roads. They allow their dogs to chase ranchers’ livestock. They regulate against owner-building and new, small, home-based manufacturing businesses.
But in the current economic climate and worse to come, the real estate business is dying here. The frauds are devouring each other. That’s good for agriculture. People who want to continue eating should leave the farmers, the ranchers, their property rights and their livelihoods in peace.
I once defended tourism here and argued with those who made the following kind of statement, but my opinion is changing. Gaper, go home!
Curacachans? Those things are gnarly.
Might be, next time. The dogs are gone. The lions will move in.
LMAO here! HAHAHAHA!
"I'll get your sheep and your sheep dogs too, my little pretty!"
Lions get bold when there are no threats to them around.
The sheep herders have been there for decades before you hikers and bikers and perform a useful task. Providing food and wool. You guys are there for cheap thrills. You are late on the scene. Your presumptuousness is a sight to behold
You should find a place to bike where you don’t impinge on ranchers who were there first and have roots there going back a few generations
All of us aren't bad. To use your own words, your presumptuousness is a sight to behold.
I've more than once wanted to punch out a snotty little mountain biker here in TX. I've got thousands of road miles on a bicycle, all in my younger years, and I've seen personally that many cyclists (as is obvious from this story) are jerks. But not all.
When my wife and I go to Colorado to hike, we keep to ourselves, and don't harass/mock the locals or their livestock. We move for the llamas and horses on trails. We stay on public land.
My family was a bunch of farmers in the deep South and though I'm a city boy I know how to act around livestock. And mountain lions...
Oops...big cats, even.
There is even more to this - this is Colorado, home to Denver where their breed specific legislation (bsl) has had pit bulls pulled out of their home and killed... just for being pit bulls.
And now these working LGDs - Livestock Guardian Dogs - were determined in court to be dangerous dogs. Bad precedent.
The Sierra Club lawyers and their liberal pals are pushing Wilderness programs hard.
Soon they will get grazing and bike riding banned.
near as I can tell the dog was a Komondor - or mostly so,
The coat was the thing I keyed upon. That and size.
My son owns a Great Pyrenees (that has a tad of St Barnard thrown in) - he needs a snow shovel to clean up after the beast. His better half sleeps well at night when he is working.
“near as I can tell the dog was a Komondor - or mostly so”
I looked up Komondors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komondor
They look like a pale Whoopi Goldberg.
LOL
With very, very big teeth.... and the ones I was reffering to came up taller than my waist at their sholder.
I have no doubt the animal is fully able to kill almost any other living thing found in NA.
And that would include me.
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