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- By Shondiin Silversmith, Arizona Mirror
As the Oak Ridge Fire continued to spread southwest of the Navajo Nation capital last week, families living in the fire’s path not only scrambled to save what they could from their homes, but many also had to rescue their animals and livestock.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the Arizona Mirror.
Even as the fire grew, a majority of Navajo families living in the immediate evacuation homes refused to leave because they did not want to abandon their livestock.
“It was really heartbreaking,” Navajo Nation Council Delegate Brenda Jesus said. She represents the St. Michael’s and Oak Springs chapter and has been on the ground helping the impacted communities since the fire started.
For many families on the Navajo Nation, livestock is their livelihood. They rely on their livestock to support their family.
“I’m not leaving if I can’t take my livestock. I’m not going to leave my livestock behind, ” Craig Tsosie, vice president of St. Michael’s Chapter, said he was told by many families during the peak of evacuations after the fire started on June 28.
Tsosie said that the only way many families in evacuation zones felt comfortable leaving their homes was if their livestock also got out.
The Navajo Department of Agriculture, Forestry, Fish & Wildlife, Navajo park rangers and Resource Enforcement have been on site in Window Rock since the fire began and have been actively assisting families who need their livestock evacuated.
The Department of Agriculture announced on its Facebook page that the Dean Jackson Arena on the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds was open to evacuated livestock as of June 28.
The department established a livestock evacuation team that families affected by the disaster could contact to coordinate evacuation assistance.
Veterinary staff were on-site at the fairgrounds to monitor the animals as they arrived. The livestock were fed and watered daily.
Tsosie said he was glad that the Department of Agriculture stepped up and mobilized to work with families to save their livestock.
“They provided trucks, trailers and they were limited on their end to what they could do,” he said. “They couldn’t be everywhere at once.”
Tsosie said many of the teams working to evacuate livestock were out on the ground in Hunters Point, Oak Springs and St. Michael’s, helping owners load their livestock into trailers at all hours of the night. There were days when he was out until 3 a.m.
Even as they worked to evacuate livestock, Tsosie said there was some frustration from the community, potentially due to the long wait times or miscommunication.
He said he hopes people understand that it was whole communities that were impacted and needed assistance.
“It wasn’t just a couple of people,” he added. “Everybody in those fire zones that were getting evacuated needed livestock evacuated along with them.”
As of July 4, the department had evacuated 39 cattle, 236 sheep, 27 chickens, 21 goats, 16 horses, seven dogs, four hogs and two turkeys, according to the Navajo Nation President’s Office.
Diné volunteers help evacuated sheep
As a way to help the sheep and owners impacted by the Oak Ridge Fire, a group of volunteers banded together at the Dean Jackson Arena on July 4 to give a flock of sheep a much-needed haircut.
“A lot of families are going to receive their sheep back better than they brought them in,” Tsosie said of the sheep shearing provided by the volunteers.
During the summer months, sheep are sheared to help them handle the heat and stay healthy. Sheep have thick wool, and unshorn sheep often experience extra stress and potential health problems during hot summer temperatures.
“They’re reliant on their shepherds to shear them,” Diné shepherd Nikyle Begay said. If they don’t get sheared, they could potentially get flystrike, a condition where flies lay their eggs within the sheep’s wool.
“Maggots will work their way into the sheep’s skin, infecting the sheep and basically eating it,” he said.
To help keep the sheep healthy and ease some of the stress from the owners, Diné shepherds Jay Begay from Hard Rock, Arizona, and Nikyle Begay from Cornfields, Arizona, put a call out on social media for volunteers to help them shear the sheep impacted by the Oak Ridge Fire.
With more than 200 sheep evacuated from the fire, there were a few flocks that were not sheared for the summer.
“Many flocks are shepherded by elders who probably had (shearing) planned for the summer, but instead, they were displaced by the fire,” Nikyle said. “We just wanted to ease whatever worries they might have and offer our services.”
Working with the Navajo Department of Agriculture, they were able to arrange a shearing event for the sheep.
“This is a way for us to help without being in the way and helping the best way we know how,” Nikyle said, adding that when they put out the call, the response was immediate.
The response, Nikyle said, is because they are part of a great community of shepherds, fiber artists and those who admire sheep.
Shearers from across the Navajo Nation showed up to help give haircuts to nearly 80 sheep, each of them taking one animal at a time throughout the day.
Tarps and plyboards were laid out on the dirt floor in different areas of the arena for volunteers to use to hand-shear the sheep. The sheep varied in size, from small lambs to full-grown rams.
The volunteer shearer would take a sheep, tie off the legs if needed, and hold the sheep down to be sheared using sharp shearing scissors.
After the volunteers were done shearing, the wool was collected and saved in bags for the owners.
A total of 18 volunteers showed up to help with the sheep, Nikyle said, and 10 stayed throughout the day.
“Sheep are an integral part of our culture,” Nikyle said. “They’ve always been; they’ve made their place within ceremonies and everyday life.”
For more information about the event and the shearing work, Nikyle can be reached on Instagram at Navajo Shepherd.
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