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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (8732)	10/21/2002 10:14:59 PM
From: mph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

gee, did they have "lawns" then?<g>

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (8732)	10/21/2002 11:11:08 PM
From: Libbyt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

they used to use goats and sheep to keep lawns trimmed? They still use goats and sheep to reduce vegetation in areas that might be prone to forest fires. Grazing sheep is less expensive than having a controlled burn to prevent fires. Just recently there were sheep grazing in part of the area that was hit by the devastating Oakland Hills fire 11 years ago. I know quite a few people who lost their homes in the Oakland Hills fire. presol.com Sheep may help prevent forest fires Natural-born grazers turn potential tinder into a daily meal Jane Bernard / Associated Press A San Carlos firefighter buries a cut tree to prevent erosion. Sheep are also used to keep fires under control. By Jessica Wehrman / Scripps Howard News Service LOS ALAMOS -- Move over, Smokey Bear, bands of fire-fighting sheep are grazing to the rescue. By letting thousands of sheep graze in designated areas in the American West, U.S. Forest Service offices and local officials are finding an eco-friendly, four-footed lawn mower that can turn potential tinder into lunch. Here's how it works. The dry underbrush on forestland can act as fuel to wildfires. But sheep -- and sometimes goats -- graze that land, removing much of the threat that overgrowth can create and creating designated "fuel breaks" -- which can act to slow down fast-moving fire and give fire fighters a little more time to put it out. It's a cheap alternative to the Forest Service's controversial controlled burn policy of starting fires to clear out underbrush. Such a fateful decision last month resulted in 200 homes being destroyed in the New Mexico town of Los Alamos. Last year, California's Angeles National Forest, which has its own grazing program, spent $4,000 to graze 10,000 acres. A prescribed burn would have cost $100 to $500 an acre, according to Shawna Bautista, a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service. "Sheep can't prevent fires," Bautista said, "But they help in the pre-attack or pre-suppression." Hudson Glimp, a professor and acting chair of the school of veterinary medicine at the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada at Reno, said the more brush, the larger and faster moving the wall of flame is. In 1999, Glimp worked on a project that grazed sheep on the hills outside of Carson City, Nev. Those hills burned wildly every 15 to 18 years, and Carson City officials were worried that their time was due. "You've got standing dead forest sitting there begging for a lightning strike," Glimp said. "This is serious." There have been no serious fires since sheep grazed on that land in April and May of 1999. Lack of rainfall stalled the program this year -- no grass has grown there, Glimp said. Dominique Minaberrigarai, a sheep producer out of Bakersfield, Calif., has grazed about 3,000 sheep in Angeles National Forest near Los Angeles annually for almost 20 years. The Forest Service has waived grazing fees for the sheep in return for the fire-control service. "They realized they wouldn't have to do as many controlled burns once we had our sheep there," he said. Tom Filbin, a Golconda, Nev., sheep producer, grazed his sheep near Carson City -- 200 miles away -- last year. The largest expense, he said, was the cost of transporting the sheep, for which he was reimbursed. "We're interested in it hopefully becoming a side business," he said. "One of the things many people in the livestock business are looking at is other ways our animals can generate income." detnews.com