My Economy

How this California business puts animals to work preventing wildfires

Maria Hollenhorst Oct 25, 2023
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“We use our animals in a very special, targeted type of manner, very different to traditional ranching with grazing animals,” says Cole Bush, owner and operator of Shepherdess Land & Livestock in California’s Ojai Valley. Paul Mirah Collins
My Economy

How this California business puts animals to work preventing wildfires

Maria Hollenhorst Oct 25, 2023
Heard on:
“We use our animals in a very special, targeted type of manner, very different to traditional ranching with grazing animals,” says Cole Bush, owner and operator of Shepherdess Land & Livestock in California’s Ojai Valley. Paul Mirah Collins
HTML EMBED:
COPY

My Economy” tells the story of the new economic normal through the eyes of people trying to make it, because we know the only numbers that really matter are the ones in your economy.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this month aimed at providing funding for fire hazard mitigation using “prescribed grazing.”

“We use our animals in a very special, targeted type of manner, very different to traditional ranching with grazing animals,” said Cole Bush, owner and operator of Shepherdess Land & Livestock in California’s Ojai Valley. “I run herds of up to 700 sheep and goats. And myself and my team of shepherds move our animals from site to site given the time of year.” 

Bush calls herself a “modern-day shepherdess,” but she did not grow up living an agrarian lifestyle. Click the audio player above to hear her talk about her shepherdess origin story and how her company uses sheep, goats and dogs as firefighters.

A woman and a dog sit on a red ATV.
Cole Bush and border collie Rue, one of a handful of herding dogs employed by Shepherdess Land & Livestock. (Todd Selby/Courtesy Shepherdess Land & Livestock)

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