In southern Greece, where my family and I have lived off and on since the mids, the twice-yearly flow of people and their animals was so ingrained in the way of life that, until the late s, it carried a priest and a schoolteacher with it. We arrived in Babala after a steep, four-hour hike. Stone kalivia —primitive summer cottages used by shepherds—were scattered across a rocky meadow crisscrossed by drystone walls that once enclosed vineyards and gardens.
Today just one family makes the transhumance. We were there because we had heard that they also made touloumotiri —cheese that is traditionally aged in the cleaned and heavily salted skin of a goat. For two years I had been searching for authentic touloumotiri most cheesemakers now age it in barrels , and I finally found it there, in Babala, at the homestead of Dimitris and Yianoula Hiotis.
Dimitris told us about the blue mold that forms between the cheese and the skin, which he kneads into the cheese. Yianoula scooped out a chunk and placed it on a communal plate. Hunks of wood-toasted bread in hand, we dug in. The cheese was deliciously pungent and peppery—it was the touloumotiri of my childhood, the touloumotiri of transhumance.
In many places around the world, cheesemaking is central to transhumance. In all of these cases, the cheesemakers count on access for their animals to wild pasture because its diverse forage imparts specific flavors to the milk the animals produce, which in turn affects the flavors of the cheeses.
Wherever it is practiced, transhumance has helped shape landscapes: Over millennia, shrines, churches, inns, and eventually villages materialized near the pathways. On one of the town gates, an inscription dating back to A. In Greece, monopatia were the only means of connection between otherwise isolated mountain and coastal communities; along their routes, trade and even romance bloomed.
The marriage was arranged by her father, who walked the pathways to find a suitable match for her. This practice, she told me, was commonplace then. We have transhumance to thank for yodeling and the alpenhorn, and countless folk songs, poems, feasts, and festivals, all of which flourished in the wake of the herders. In Madrid each October, during the Fiesta de la Trashumancia, about 2, sheep are herded through the heart of the Spanish capital.
When the shepherds and their flocks reach the city center, they gather on the elegant Plaza de Cibeles with its neoclassical sculptures and fountains. Research has shown that from Spain to the Tyrol to the boreal pastures of Norway, the pathways of transhumance support biodiversity by linking grasslands and forests, often in regions fragmented by development and intensive agricultural cultivation.
They also provide migration corridors for wildlife, as well as habitat for animals and plants. Proponents of including transhumance on the UNESCO list also suggest that the practice is more sustainable than intensive livestock farming. In , three years before completing his dissertation, he moved home and began raising sheep.
Manuela Cozzi came with him, and together they started La Porta dei Parchi farm. Today Marcelli and Cozzi run the operation with their daughter, Viola, 34, and their son, Jacopo, We raise sheep because we hope to inspire others to do the same. We make the transumanza because it is good for the health of the animals and it is good for this place.
Transhumance faces many challenges, from climate change, which can alter the forage, to shifting demographics and evolving land-use policies and patterns. Over time, some herding, or drove, roads have become motor roads. Others now intersect highways or rail lines. Pasture is turned into cropland. She hopes it will help make transhumance, and small-scale agriculture in general, more viable for her family and others.
The only thing I would say is that they won't always pull the prey towards the handler - they may by instinct head in the opposite direction.
Sheepdog trials return to county. Sheep rustling boosts rural crime. Dogs of war: WW1's canine recruits. Image source, AJ Morton. GPS devices were strapped to sheep in order to track their movements. Selfish herd. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Claire Marshall finds out how farmer Meirion Owen communicates with his sheepdog.
Image source, S Hailes. Whenever the sheep are not tightly bunched, the sheepdog will gather them together before moving on. GPS devices were fitted to the sheep using harnesses like this one. Related Topics. Forest re-developed on these former cultivated landscapes. These forests offered perfect habitats for the introduced wildlife to thrive again.
This influenced the food supply of the local wolf populations as well, decreasing the existing conflicts. Ownership structures in the Alps are mostly small-scale and often fragmented.
This also applies for grazing rights of alpine meadows and alps. Together with the topographical circumstances of the Alps, large, or even joint, sheep herds did not make sense in most areas.
So reducing the herds in autumn, as it is still done today, was probably already an established practice in the middle ages and modern times. In the Alps, hayfarming with cattle up on mountain pastures dates back to the late middle ages. As a consequence of all this, the working dog breeds developing in the Alps were used for herding, hauling and protecting the house.
Many breeds in this area are seen as allround working dogs. I does not contain any livestock guarding dogs though. In most parts of the Alps, shepherds were rare and dogs were mostly herding instead of guarding the livestock. The local method against the wolf was simply shooting them. This quick look on the historic development of herd management and the coexistence with the wolf shows that herd sizes play an important role.
Central Europe hardly sees sheep herds with thousands of animals anymore. In particular, the Alps have smaller herds, whereby the largest herds contain several hundreds of sheep. Examples are the herds on the Swiss Ramuz Alp. For herds with several hundreds of animals a shepherd with several guarding and herding dogs, as well as a night corral with electrical fences, is the best method for proper herd management.
For smaller herds containing less than a hundred of sheep; electrical Flexinet fences, cm high, and a night corral might work well. The most appropriate herd management measures depend on the size of the herds as well as on the topographical circumstances. The European Wilderness Society is currently working on a handbook explaining best-practice livestock management methods in Europe.
Skip to content. Please also read: Wolf Survival linked to Livestock Guarding Dogs Latifundia systems in areas with large sheep herds Some centuries ago large sheep herds, particularly in open landscapes in Italy and Spain, were mostly owned by only a few landowners.
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