NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Along the Cumberland River just north of downtown Nashville, Tenn., tourists on party pontoons float past the recognizable skyline, but they also can see something a little less expected: hundreds of sheep nibbling on the grass along the riverbank.
The urban sheepherder who manages this flock, Zach Richardson, said sometimes the tourist boats will go out of their way to let their passengers get a closer glimpse of the Nashville Chew Crew grazing a few hundred yards away from densely populated residential and commercial buildings.
The joy people get from watching sheep graze is partly why they are becoming trendy workers in some urban areas.
“Everybody that comes out here and experiences the sheep, they enjoy it more than they would someone on a zero-turn mower or a guy with a leaf blower or a weed eater,” Richardson said.
Using sheep for prescribed grazing is not a new landscaping method, but more urban communities are opting for it to handle land management concerns such as invasive species, wildfire risks, protection of native vegetation and animal habitats and maintaining historic sites.
Nashville’s parks department hired the Chew Crew in 2017 to help maintain Fort Negley, a Civil War-era Union fortification that had weeds growing between and along its stones that lawnmowers could easily chip. Sheep now graze about 150 acres of city property annually, including in the historic Nashville City Cemetery.
“It is a more environmentally sustainable way to care for the greenspace and oftentimes is cheaper than doing it with handheld equipment and staff,” said Jim Hester, assistant director of Metro Nashville Parks.
Living among the sheep — and often blending in — are the Chew Crew’s livestock guardian dogs, Anatolian shepherds, who are born and stay with them 24/7 to keep away nosy intruders, both the two-legged and the four-legged kinds. The flock is comprised of hair sheep, a type of breed that naturally sheds its hair fibers and often is used for meat.
Another important canine employee is Duggie, the border collie. With only a few whistles and commands from Richardson, Duggie can control the whole flock when they need to be moved, separated or loaded onto a trailer.
Across the country, another municipality also has become reliant on these hoofed nibblers. Santa Barbara, California, has been using grazing sheep for about seven years as one way to manage land buffers that can slow or halt the spread of wildfires.
“The community loves the grazers and it’s kind of a great way of community engagement,” said Monique O’Conner, open space planner for the city’s parks and recreation. “It’s kind of a new shiny way of land management.”
The grazed areas can change how fire moves, said Mark vonTillow, the wildland specialist for the Santa Barbara City Fire Department.
“So if a fire is coming down the hill and it’s going through a full brush field, and then all of a sudden it hits grazed area that’s sort of broken up vegetation, the fire behavior reacts drastically and drops to the ground,” vonTillow said. “That gives firefighters a chance to attack the fire.”
