Counting Sheep

by Philip Walling

  Until the Rare Breeds Survival Trust became involved the breed was kept going in the high Peak by a few breeders who valued its virtues on its native moors, even when it was reduced to 1,000 or so breeding ewes. It is still a rare sheep, but not endangered in the way it was. It has strong bone and a whiteness to the face and legs and a pink nose that echo its origins in the limestone country, and its stronghold is the moors around the Woodhead Reservoir near Glossop, where Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire meet. This is a bleak place, of notoriously heavy snowfalls, blown by wild winter winds, and is frequently cut off in a bad season.

  The moor is in an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and the farmer, the remnant of whose flock grazes part of it, is being paid not to keep sheep on a large area of it. He has sold 800 ewes (about half the flock) that formerly grazed a large area which has now been fenced off to be left to nature. He has agreed to do nothing with it – no grazing or anything else – for the ten years the scheme lasts. The brown dead fronds of Molinia grass (‘flying bent’) are thigh deep and the wind whips it off the hill and blows it into the reservoir, where it rots.

  The fenced-off and abandoned moorland stood out from the rest, like a brown patch stitched onto the green background. Natural England says it is being ‘re-wilded’. But nobody could tell me why land that has produced meat and wool for many centuries is being left to revert to a state it has not been in for thousands of years. There have been sheep and cattle grazing these moors, probably since the Iron Age, and it is hard to understand the benefit of paying a farmer to let this land lie idle.

  During the very bad snowstorms a couple of years ago, some of the remaining sheep walked on a snowdrift over the fence into the set-aside area. The snow was so deep that it was difficult to get them out. But hardly had half a day passed before DEFRA phoned the farmer to tell him that his sheep were ‘in the ESA land’ and he had better get them out ‘double quick’. When he asked how they knew, when the road had been blocked with snow for days, the caller replied that their satellite had been watching the site and had seen the sheep.

  As part of the ‘re-wilding’ programme Natural England sprayed some of the moorland with weed-killer, churned up the surface and sowed it with heather seed. And … nothing grew but weeds. The assumption is that sheep grazing moorland is bad for the ‘natural’ flora and if they are kept off, the native flora will return. But it is hard to know what is natural, especially after the thousands of years of grazing which has created the moors.

  Across the valley, the largest peat bog restoration project in Europe, Moors for the Future Partnership, was formed in 2003 with the intention of re-creating the blanket bog that it was believed had once clothed the high moors of the Peak District and the Pennines. Ecologists claimed that the peat layer had been damaged by industrial pollution, sheep grazing, walkers, farming and weather erosion. The scheme involved first erecting a twenty-mile fence round a large area of the moor called Bleaklow. The sheep were expelled and work began to ‘re-waterlog’ the peat and cover the bare ground (which was said to be six square kilometres in 2003) with hundreds of tons of heather brashings and ‘geo-jute’ (netting made from unbleached jute fibre that is supposed to stabilise the surface and rot away after a season). They began work to block up the grips (drainage channels) by carrying stones up from the valley by helicopter.

  Millions of pounds have been spent on this project, including paying the farmers not to keep the thousands of sheep that used to graze the moors. The partnership use a number of arguments to justify the vast cost: peat captures carbon and reduces the rate of climate change, reduces water run-off and flooding downstream, and ‘re-creates a unique ecosystem’ that supports the ‘unique wildlife of the moors’. They believe that by re-introducing sphagnum moss and cotton grass the peat and the blanket bog will regenerate. Most of the work has been done by helicopter. Up to the end of 2012 they claimed to have reseeded about 1,500 acres of moorland using 8 billion grass and heather seeds.

  Nowhere do they mention how much carbon is emitted by the helicopters and all the other machinery they are using, or the vehicles the army of advisers uses, or the rest of the energy they are putting into this project. They admit that getting native species to grow is an extremely difficult and expensive process. Bilberry seeds will not readily germinate unless they pass through the stomach of a bird and they haven’t ‘found a safe way of replicating this process yet’. Sphagnum moss is also difficult to germinate and they try to persuade it to grow by a method called ‘hydro-seeding’, which is a fancy way of describing spreading seed mixed with water from a helicopter, or quad-bike or knapsack sprayer. Depending on species, the seed costs between £155 and £3,000 a kilogram. Then it costs between £45 and £75 a hectare to sow it, not to mention the fertiliser, the ‘monitoring’, the testing, the research and a whole host of ecologists’ salaries, pensions, vehicles, fuel, and so on and so on.

  The heather brash is cut only from moors in the Peak District National Park to avoid bringing ticks into this tick-free area. It has to be cut by tractor and forage harvester in autumn and winter after it has seeded, loaded into bags and lifted by helicopter and then spread across the site either by helicopter or by hand. Between 2003 and the end of 2009 they had spread 18,500 × 125 kg bags of heather brash. They have also rolled out vast lengths of geo-jute up and down the gullies and secured it with metal pegs that apparently ‘bio-degrade’ (rust away) quicker than wooden pegs in the acid soil. The idea behind it is to stabilise the surface of the peat in the gullies.

  It is far from clear that the peat is disappearing, or that this project will result in the peat growing back. And if the peat is eroding, it might be part of a long-term natural process that cannot be reversed. It is by no means certain that grazing did cause the erosion of the peat layer or loss of the vegetation. Grazing with sheep generally improves a sward by making it knit closer together and tiller out. Certainly sheep grazing, coupled with burning, improves heather by keeping it young. The ecologists behind the project do not know what has caused the reduction in growth of sphagnum mosses. The scheme is based on certain presumptions: that sheep grazing is bad; that global warming, or climate change as we now have to call it, is happening and is having an effect on the moors. But it is far from certain that these are to blame. All the money and effort is really being spent on a huge trial-and-error basis, so far with little to show for it. But neither the organisers nor the armies of volunteers are discouraged. They say things like ‘It’s got to be worth it’, ‘The signs are good’ and ‘When you think of the future of our water, our wildlife and our atmosphere it’s got to be worth it.’ The slightest sign of regeneration of any native species is taken as a sign that their faith is justified.

  These moors are being turned into something like a huge municipal park, in theory open to everybody, but in fact highly regulated and restricted. Humanity is excluded from large areas for ‘the benefit of the ecosystem’. The whole effort seems to be some sort of spiritual exercise in a secular age. And it is far from certain that it will increase the prospects for wildlife, because dominant predators, such as birds of prey and foxes, are left unchecked in the belief that nature will balance itself if left to its own devices.

  The project doubtless appeals to those who have absorbed the belief that farming is a wicked practice, is destroying the planet and is morally inferior to environmentalism, which is a Good Thing. That view has infiltrated large parts of the Western psyche without our fully realising it. The only difference between what might be called a middle-of-the-road, broadly green view and the re-wilders is a matter of degree. Your ordinary conservationist is more of a preservationist, wanting a kind of shaggy garden, where sheep may safely graze, tended by quaint rustics. But re-wilders want Nature to be unchained, freed from human influence, so it can achieve its soaring potential. Out would go farmers, tourists, ramblers; in would come a brave new world of wolves, bears, beavers, otters, reptiles and all that goes to make up a ‘thriving ecosystem’ w
ith the European straight-tusked elephant, which apparently browsed the flora of Western Europe 115,000 years ago, at the top. Extreme re-wilders will not rest until this rough beast of a pachyderm, its hour come round again, is resurrected. I can see that going down well in Keswick.

  A confident civilisation, with a future, cultivates its land and values its husbandry because these are on the side of humanity. It honours the trust, building on the work of previous generations, before passing it on to the next a little better than it found it. But re-wilders don’t behave as if they have a next generation. They seem to see themselves as the last of the line, with a sacred duty to return everything to Nature, in one grand final gesture.

  Environmental schemes and re-wilding projects have already gone a long way towards ridding our hills of sheep. There’s hardly a flock left in the Highlands, and they’re fast vacating the rest of the uplands because farmers are being paid not to keep them. Not keeping sheep is such a profitable business, that like Major Major’s father in Catch 22, getting rich from not growing alfalfa, the more sheep farmers don’t keep, the more money they make from not keeping them, and the more land they can set aside for not keeping sheep.

  It is true that we have become disconnected from the reality of the natural world and no longer know where our food comes from; environmentalism may be an understandable reaction to industrial farming, but it’s not the answer. Letting the land run wild does not produce anything of tangible value that can be eaten, worn, traded or otherwise put to use.

  Some will try to claim the fruits of re-wilding do have a value, but, as Harry Hardisty used to say, you can’t eat trees. As the world’s population increases and the nations grow ever more restive, how are we going to feed ourselves? Creating an Arcadian idyll, from which human activity has been banished, is a utopian fantasy that would have us retreat from large parts of our cultivated land, surrendering to the wilderness hard-won terrain and destroying many centuries of human effort. It’s a fantasy that spits in the face of the future.

  Sheep have been our constant companions since the dawn of civilisation, partners in taming the wilderness, and are the most versatile of our domestic livestock. They have adapted themselves to every nuance of climate and terrain. Their grazing has enriched our soil and made the beauty of our fields and farms. There is hardly a sheep-keeping country in the world whose flocks have not benefited from an intermingling of genes from British sheep. Sheep are in our national blood, they are part of the life of the land that still pulses beneath the surface of modern Britain. They are our pastoral heritage and our future. Let us celebrate them.

  GLOSSARY

  Agistment: the taking in of animals to graze for a fee. From the Old French agister, to lodge – hence gîte – and jacitare, to rest or lie, hence hic jacet. The person who takes in the grazing animals has a lien over them – i.e. is entitled to keep them until their owner pays the agreed fee.

  Anthelmintic: a substance that expels or kills intestinal parasites

  Bradford Count: an old measure of the fineness of a fibre of wool (now superseded by the micron). It is based on the number of hanks, 560 yards long, of single-strand yarn that the wool sorter judged could be spun from a pound of top. A count of 56 meant that the pound of top would make 56 hanks, i.e. 17.8 miles of yarn; see micron

  Britch: in the north of England, a sheep’s back end – i.e. its breech

  Chilver: a ewe lamb before its first shearing (used in the south of England); – see gimmer

  Chine: the ridge along the shoulder and backbone

  Cleat: the gap between the hooves containing a gland which excretes scented lubrication to reduce chafing between the hooves. When the scent is transferred to the ground it encourages flocking.

  Cowie: polled ram in the north of England

  Crimp: the natural folding and curling of each wool fibre

  Dagging: clipping away wool round a sheep’s rear end that is either soiled or might become soiled with urine or faeces, to discourage blowflies laying their eggs there; see strike

  Dinmont: an obsolete word for a shearling in the north of England and southern Scotland

  Drench: to dose with any kind of liquid medicine

  Down breeds: breeds created as terminal sires for meat production. They all descend in one form or another from John Ellman’s improved Southdown.

  Draft ewe: older female sheep that has been drafted, i.e. drawn out, from a flock for sale. Usually refers to mountain and hill breeds that go for further breeding with Longwool breeds to produce hybrid breeding females.

  Ewe: mature female sheep

  F 1 generation: first filial generation, i.e. the first-cross between two different pure breeds

  Fold: a place where sheep are gathered together

  Fell: any unimproved grazing land – usually unfenced common, but not exclusively

  Finished: when a grazing animal has completed the development of muscle and begun to lay down fat and is well-fleshed enough to form an edible carcase; see slow feeding

  Fly-strike: see strike

  Foggage: the regrowth of grass after a crop of hay has been taken

  Geld sheep: a sheep that is neither in lamb nor suckling lambs – a barren sheep

  Gigot: a hind leg of lamb or mutton – from the French, but of unknown origin

  Gimmer: a female sheep synonymous with girl; as in gimmer lamb (girl lamb), gimmer hogg (female that has been weaned but not yet shorn)

  Hank: loose skein of wool 560 yards long

  Heaf, heath, heft: part of an open hill where a sheep feels it belongs and to where it returns instinctively. This proclivity to become attached to a piece of land is instinctive (probably in all animals) and is also passed from generation to generation. Hill and pure-bred sheep often have the strongest attachment to their heaf.

  Heterozygote: (adjective heteroxygous) a zygote (fertilised egg) formed from gametes with certain differing pairs of alternative characters, one of which is dominant and the other recessive; cf. homozygote

  Hirsel: the area of land upon which a flock lives and also the number of sheep that a shepherd can comfortably manage on a hill. From the Old Norse hirtha, to herd or tend.

  Hock: the backwards pointing joint in the hind leg of a quadruped between the true knee and the fetlock.

  Hogg: also hogget, a sheep that has been weaned but not sheared for the first time. It can refer to either sex; hence it is usually qualified by using tup (male), gimmer (female) or wether (castrated male).

  Hoggust: a North Country word for a building where hoggs were housed during their first winter as an alternative to sending them away to better land; cf. agistment

  Homozygote: (adjective homozygous) a zygote (fertilised egg) that has inherited particular genetic characteristics from both parents; cf. heterozygote

  Kemp: short, coarse, brittle, hairy fibres in the fleece that are not wool

  Kytle: a short, coarse linen jacket, popular among farmers and shepherds all over the north of England, especially Yorkshire and Cumbria (from the Norse)

  Lambing percentage: the number of lambs reared expressed as a percentage of the number of ewes in the flock

  Lanolin: waterproofing fatty oil secreted onto wool and used in ointments and creams

  Lisk: groin. In a sheep it is the loose skin between the hind leg and the abdomen.

  Luck money: a small cash gift made by the seller to the buyer of livestock, like a tip, which seals the bargain and invests it with good fortune

  Lustre: the natural sheen of certain Longwools caused by the shape of the cup-like plates that make up each wool fibre and enhanced by the excretion of lanolin

  Micron or micrometre: one thousandth of a millimetre, one millionth of a metre; used as a measure of the fineness of a fibre of wool

  Moorit: chocolate-brown (light or dark) wool

  Mule: first-generation hybrid. In sheep it is the offspring of a Bluefaced Leicester ram bred with a Swaledale ewe. From the Latin mulus.

  Nott or not: S
outhern English word for a shearling

  Polled: hornless

  Race: an alleyway only wide enough for one sheep to pass down at a time; see shedder

  Raddle: see rudd

  Rake: to range over, or spread across the whole area of a piece of land, or to drive ahead of; from raka, Old Norse, to drive or to drift

  Ram: entire male sheep, i.e. one that has not been castrated; see tup

  Recessive: an inherited characteristic which is masked by an alternative dominant characteristic and which will only become apparent when it is allied to the same recessive characteristic from the other parent; see heterozygous

  Rise: the growth of new wool under the old fleece

  Rudd or ruddle or raddle: the coloured marking fluid or crayon applied to a ram’s chest which will mark a ewe’s rump whenever the ram has mounted her and show that she has been served – also the act of marking with the fluid

  Scurs: vestigial horns often little more than scaly growths where the horns would have been

  Shearling: a sheep of either sex that has been shorn once; thereafter two-shear, three-shear, four-shear, etc.; see nott, twinter and teg

  Shedder: a wicket gate hung in a race in such a way that by swinging it from side to side a flock of sheep can be sorted into two or more groups by directing them individually into separate pens, obviating the need to handle them

  Slow feeding: description of a grazing animal that takes a long time to mature: see finished

  Smit: a Cumbrian word for the fluid used to mark wool to indicate ownership or something else the shepherd needs to remember about the sheep.

  Spain: to wean a lamb from its mother; pronounced variously ‘spean’, ‘spyan’

  Staple: the natural length of wool fibres in the fleece

  Steading: collective term for the farm buildings, usually with the farmhouse

  Stell: enclosure (usually circular, sometimes cruciform) usually formed by stone walls, built on a hirsel to which a flock can retreat for shelter and food in bad weather. Rarely found outside Scotland.