Shepherds of Coyote Rocks

Now in paperback, this engaging narrative of one woman's season alone in the Wyoming backcountry with her dogs, burros, and flock of sheep brings life on the range and its place in a larger world into vivid relief.

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Cat Urbigkit spends a season on Wyoming's open range, tending to a flock of domestic sheep as they give birth amid the challenges of nature-from severe weather to a wealth of predators. Her only companions are her guardian animals, big dogs and a pair of burros named Bill and Hillary that repeatedly prove their worth in their devotion to protecting the flock. Urbigkit offers interesting reflections on the role of pastoralists around the globe and on the controversial issue in the western US of private livestock herds being run on public lands. The intimate ways in which abstract public policy plays out on the range are eye-opening. More than a tale of shepherding livestock, Shepherds of Coyote Rocks is an action-packed true story that reveals the broad spectrum of the human relationship with nature.