Walk to the shepherds
Excursion to the sheep flock 2008-09-06
Unfortunately we did not meet the shepherd and did not see any sheep. But here are some information regarding the sheep Jean Vancompernolle gave us: In the mountains near Peyresq above the timberline 1700 sheep are grazing during the summertime. The shepherd uses the lower hut from June to October. The sheep have to be watered every two days, on the remaining days they get salt. The presence of only a very view watering places led to heavy overgrazing and damage by trampling due to the heavy usage of the pathways. To avoid this they built up water basins to retain water at different hights.
Sheep prefer very short grass, it must not reach the ears, as the shepherds say. The grazing contributes to keep the landscape open, which is visited by 15 million hikers per year. It also reduces fire risk and increases seed dispersal. Rambling with the sheep, the so called transhumans (french transhumer), is nowadays also a tourist attraction.
Excursion report from Peter Meffert
Photo gallery from the walk to the shepherds
Photographs by Wolfgang Cramer (wc), Rik Leemans (rl), Sabine Lütkemeier (sl), Michael Padmanaba (mp), Elle Rajandu (er), Teodoro Semeraro (ts), Esteban Tapella (et) and Allan Watt (aw)
