Navajo churro sheep flourished in the Southwest until inadequate herding practices and government intervention pushed the breed to the brink of extinction.
For the past 16 years, The Navajo Sheep Project at Utah State University has been helping restore churro flocks to the reservation, often with the financial help of celebrities, including members of The Grateful Dead.Over the past four years the REX Foundation, the Dead's philanthropic organization, has purchased more than 100 churro sheep and donated them to livestock producers and weavers on the reservation. Nancy McNeal, development director for the Navajo Sheep Project (NSP), said most of the sheep purchased by the group have been given to weavers in Dinnebito, Ariz., which is "as near Tuba City as it is to any city, but it's a very remote area."
Information from the California-based REX Foundation indicates there is no explicit criteria for the types of projects it funds. The board - made up of members of The Grateful Dead and some friends and family members - simply select projects they feel are worthwhile.
NSP Director Lyle McNeal, professor of animal science at USU, said flocks of churro sheep once thrived in the Southwest. The long fibers of their wool and beautiful variety of colors made them prized possessions among Navajo weavers. They were introduced to the United States in 1589 by Spanish colonizers.
The breed was nearly wiped out in 1863 after the U.S. government ordered the sheep destroyed in efforts to subdue the Navajos, and again in the 1930s and '40s due to overgrazing on reservation ranges.
The Grateful Dead are just some of the celebrities whose financial support has benefitted the churros and the Navajos who prize them. "The Paul Mitchell Foundation has also donated for many years," Lyle McNeal said. "Bonnie Raitt has bought several sheep which are on the reservation, and Kim Novak just purchased two llamas which will join our flock in Logan this week."
The llamas live with the churros, and, once they bond with the sheep, become very protective guardians of the flock. The llamas intimidate or chase away predators that might otherwise destroy sheep. Since llamas and alpacas joined the flock more than four years ago, the NSP has not lost a single sheep or lamb to predators.
"Before we had the llamas, we could lose 30 to 40 lambs a summer to coyotes and foxes," Lyle McNeal said.
The llamas, including the ones Novak donated, will get a real test this summer when they go with the flock to the mountains of southwestern Colorado as part of a USDA-funded grazing study. There, at an elevation of about 8,000 feet, the sheep and llamas will mix with cougars and bears in addition to the coyotes and foxes they've learned to deal with at home.