Former Basin resident becomes a shepherd

Josh King, who grew up and attended school in Basin, has had an interesting life, but even he couldn’t have predicted the latest turn in his career. Looking for a summer job while getting his second master’s degree, he was struggling to find one.
Then fate took a twist that left Josh on a mountain, keeping company with sheep.

In his search for a summer job in Switzerland, he had hit a brick wall until he saw a job as a night shepherd. He figured he might have a chance because there wouldn’t be many applicants for a night job. Especially a night job protecting sheep from wolves.

As far as Josh knew, he was the only paid night shepherd in Switzerland last summer. His job was to mind a herd of Valais black-faced sheep. The sheep are a rare breed that are the cutest sheep that exist. They are considered a dual purpose breed, raised for both meat and wool, but Josh found that the ones he was herding were mostly owned by people who had bred them for generations and were kept more because of their genetics. They seemed to him to be more pets than anything. 

Switzerland has approximately the same wolf population as Wyoming, but the land area is much smaller, so the concentration is much higher. Josh’s one purpose was to deter wolf attacks. The co-op of owners wanted to try something different than had been used in the past and really didn’t work all that well. Previously, wolves were deterred by fencing the sheep into paddocks with electric fences at night, but attacks still occurred. This group of owners decided to use a little technology and put a person with a drone in place as a shepherd to see if it would be as or more effective than electric fencing.

Josh had to buy all the food for 90 days because everything was helicoptered to his mountain hut. The food had to be shelf stable so it wouldn’t go bad, and yet give him plenty of energy to hike up and down the mountain each night. The basis of his diet was oatmeal, chocolate, rice, pasta and canned tuna.

He had to qualify to fly the drone that he was to use to deter wolves. The drone was equipped with thermal imaging to help him spot wolves and track the sheep. He also had a camera with thermal imaging capabilities.

When it was time for him to start, he loaded everything up, including his dog Moose, and traveled to his “home” on the range, an 8-foot by 12-foot hut. The hut had solar panels, a bed and a small wood stove. Whenever the sheep changed pastures, the hut was also moved, by helicopter, to its new location.

Josh’s work “day” started about 8 p.m. when the day shepherd would bring the sheep to the valley and group them together to make them easier to patrol. The first evening, Josh discovered that Moose was terrified of sheep, especially the bells the sheep wore. Moose was great company, but not much help in protecting the sheep.

Josh found the nights to be brutal. The temperature would drop, getting colder and colder, and he would struggle to stay awake. It never became normal for Josh. He continued to struggle throughout the summer. Many nights he had to hike up the mountain to check on groups of sheep that didn’t stay lower in the valley where he could keep an eye on them, but that got him out and moving
and helped him stay warm and awake.

Towards the end of his contract, a snowstorm confined him to his hut for several days when it dropped almost 20 inches of snow. Four days later, he was able to get out and patrol again.

Shortly after the snowstorm, the inevitable happened and there was a wolf attack on his flock. He knew something was amiss when he saw the sheep clustered against a cliff. He climbed to where the sheep were and looked around. He didn’t see anything at the time, but his presence calmed the sheep. The next morning, he found a dead lamb. It hadn’t been eaten on, but he did see bite wounds on the lamb. An expert confirmed that it was a wolf kill. The expert determined that Josh’s presence caused the wolf to leave the lamb and, in the end, it was proven that a person protecting the sheep was better than the electric fence. Josh’s herd only lost one sheep. The neighboring herds lost many more, up to 17 in one night.

Josh has been offered a job next summer as well. At first he declined, but he changed his mind when he decided to step up to the challenge again. Josh said that by taking what he learned last summer and combining it with new knowledge, he can
better protect both the sheep and the wolves on the Swiss Alps.