NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

February 24, 2000

Plains Folk: Mustering with a Bird's-Eye View

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©2000 Plains Folk

The grasslands of Forest Range Station--in the Lindis Pass, South Island of New Zealand--are high, dry, and broken, seamed with countless gullies and canyons. So when my station host, Russell Emmerson, invited me along to muster sheep from one paddock to another, it might have been an exhausting task.

Which it wasn't, because as I emerged from breakfast, Russell was servicing the helicopter--a brand new two-seater he had flown down from Christchurch. I took the shotgun seat at left, with the station mascot, a little Black Russell dog, between my ankles. A shaggy sheepdog rode in an aluminum cage slung under. And we were off to the tops.

After a quick stop to get a gate, my host began gathering little mobs of sheep from every corner and crevice of the paddock. The fine-wool Merinos in which the station specializes move readily before a helicopter; when they get sluggish, Russell opens the door and whistles at them while the dog beneath barks enthusiastically. The more reluctant sheep get a low buzz so that the rotor wash flings dust at them.

Now and then a mob gets hung in the brush--briar or the thorny native, matagouri--and has to be patiently shepherded through. Others take refuge in the bottom of a deep gully, and that's when it's hard for a passenger like me to keep down breakfast. I did, though, learning not to look at the sheer rock faces as the copter drops down between them, looking across the valley instead.

It's a fascination to observe the process of a great flock being formed from scattered mobs. Each little bunch roused from the tussock or brush is set moving toward a rendezvous with the others. Soon Russell has six or eight little flocks on the move at the same time, bouncing from one to another like a bee to blossoms. The sheep bunch up at gates, of course, like parishioners in a church foyer, and have to be whistled through. Only at one point does Russell release the dog to move a flock across a ridge, and this is just to let the dog have a run.

The sheep move more easily as they accumulate into a larger flock, gaining confidence and leadership, streaming single file along the steeper slopes, mobbing up on the tops. It takes a couple of hours to finish the muster.

This is a great opportunity to look over the landscape too. The bulk of the station is mountainous tussock grassland. Down below is the green valley of the Lindis River, just a little stream here, banks timbered, green, improved pastures stretching across the bottoms and reaching up the hillsides. Colors range from tawny drab to iridescent green.

Here and there rabbits dart for their burrows, but not many of them since the introduction of the rabbit virus in 1997. A few European hares--about the size of a North American jackrabbit--bound away before the helicopter, causing excitement for the little predator at my feet. Vegetation is fairly lush for this country, because the summer has been cool and wet.

Another thing to watch (and watch out for) is the aerial applicator top-dressing an adjacent paddock. This is common practice in New Zealand. A truck driver hauls bulk superphosphate to what passes for a landing strip on the station and loads the aircraft with a front end loader. Guided by tools of the global positioning system (GPS), the pilot then spreads the "super" across the paddock.

Now we're at rest on the station helipad, and Russell says it's time to go in for "smoko," what we Americans call a break. "After a hard day's mustering, a fellow needs a bite to eat," he says. Since we've done the work of four men and eight dogs this morning, I suppose he's right.

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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136

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