Sheep Grazing for Wildfire Mitigation in California

The 2025 Los Angeles County Fires

Here in California, we're still sifting through the devastation of the recent fires and asking ourselves – as individuals and as communities — how we can get our ecosystems back into a healthy balance. While a local electrical power company may be responsible for starting some of these recent wildfires, larger questions remain about how we might practically mitigate the effects of climate change and prevent future man-made disasters.

Could regenerative agricultural practices and sheep grazing help prevent future wildfires? According to Jenya Schneider at Cuyama Lamb, sheep grazing can be used as a tool to lessen the intensity of wildfires by reducing potential fuel load.

Cuyama Lamb has partnered with local fire departments in Santa Barbara county to institute sheep grazing within California's chaparral ecosystem of dense, drought-resistant shrubs and small trees. Grazing helps to clear this land of dry grasses that can catch fire quickly and spread rapidly. Sheep also eat "ladder fuels", like shrubs, essentially pruning them into small bits — while their hooves simultaneously grind dead plant material back into the soil.

California passed Senate Bill (SB 675) in September of 2024 providing money for targeted grazing aimed at fire fuel mitigation. The bill recognized grazing as a climate-resilient practice that could also offer long-term benefits to the ecosystem. Santa Barbara Fire Safe Council received a CalFire grant funding targeted grazing for fire fuel mitigation and hired Cuyama Lamb and Golden State Goats as their grazing contractors. Shepherdess Land and Livestock and Ventura Brush Goats are working in a similar way in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.

Even advocates acknowledge that grazing represents only a partial solution to the overall problem. "We clearly need to tackle living safely alongside wildfires from every single angle from targeted grazing, to forestry, to safe building codes," says Jenya Schneider. "We shouldn't be taking tools off the table—we should be using every tool we've got! But grazing can treat large areas that are too costly to treat by other means."

Wanting to learn more about Cuyama Lamb and locally-sourced wool, THE KINDCRAFT contributor, Taylor Dunn, recently volunteered at Cuyama Lamb's annual sheep shearing event and she shares her experience here:

Cuyama Lamb's Annual Shearing Event

The setting for the shearing weekend is a picturesque vineyard in Santa Ynez. At 8AM the vibrant hills are still hidden under a thick fog as everyone arrives. The damp morning delays the team by a few hours. Jenya and co-founder Jack Anderson explain that the wool will burn if the electric clippers are used on the wet animals. I’m more than happy to have extra time to go check out the sheep, who stare with suspicion at everyone taking photos of them. Most of the volunteers are friends of Cuyama Lamb, all part of an incredibly supportive community and web of talented people working closely with the land.  Dogs and shepherds work in tandem to make sure the sheep stay in place behind a fence, hundreds of them comfortably woven together. Next to the flock is a willow basket filled with Cuyama Lamb’s yarn; and taking in the scene around me it’s hard to wrap my head around the enormous effort it takes to produce each perfect merino skein.

While we wait for the sheep to dry, Jenya and Jack present the volunteers with our task for the weekend; skirting the fleeces. This is the initial cleaning and sorting of the fleeces based on length and strength of its fibers. After each sheep is shorn, the fleece is placed on a large skirting table to be inspected.  Samples of fiber are plucked from three different areas of the fleece, testing the uniformity of length throughout. The best quality fleeces, labeled “A1”, have the strongest fiber measuring at least three inches long. A large hydraulic press is on site that compresses the wool into bales. The “A1” bales will be sent off for processing and made into yarn.  Badly soiled or extremely short sections of the fleeces are also removed during skirting but nothing will go to waste. We set out the skirting tables and the shearers begin their preparations.

The flock of about a thousand ewes and fifteen rams is shorn once per year. The seasonal workers erect a temporary structure for the shearing, power up their generators and are ready to go in no time. By now, the fog has cleared and the view is electric green. Some of the sheep are being ushered into the structure and music erupts, setting the tempo for the frenzy that’s about to begin. There are five men shearing and each one grabs a ewe in a way that is initially startling. The men work extremely quickly, maneuvering the sheep with a skillful and physically demanding choreography. It’s mesmerizing until they all finish at once and the fleeces go flying onto the skirting tables. Although there are multiple people skirting each fleece, the shearers’ pace is still faster.  The volunteers and I keep up as best as we can, chatting and debating the quality of the fleece in front of us with lanolin coated hands.

Every so often, I glance up to watch the freshly shorn ewes prancing towards the hills; they suddenly look like young lambs without their bulky fleeces. The wooly piles are growing comically tall and the scraps of fiber form a luxurious (albeit dirty) merino carpet beneath our feet. The flow of work is consistent until we break for lunch.  As everyone eats together, we are told that three hundred ewes were shorn in the past three hours.  This number astounds us and we acknowledge that the shearers are true masters of their craft. Most of us don’t get to witness displays of true abundance like this in our daily lives, and I have experienced the same feeling of gratitude whenever I’ve had the chance to be part of a harvest of food or fiber.

The rest of the weekend continues in a similar fashion of working in fast paced shifts under the sun.  The gorgeous scenery and heaps of prized fleeces make it very easy to romanticize this whole process without acknowledging the incredibly difficult, year-round effort that precedes this moment.  It’s hard work, yet these two days feel light and energetic.  I attribute this to the strong community Jack and Jenya have created and I get the sense that it would be nearly impossible to maintain this standard of stewardship, intentionality, and quality of wool and meat without this support. Everyone is thrilled to gather and contribute their time to this annual event, which makes all the difference. Jenya echoed this sentiment by writing:

"For the past 4 years we’ve used shearing as a time to gather together with community and share what we do. Inspired by the fact that many of our holidays are based in ancient agricultural events that required lots of helping hands—planting seeds and reaping harvest—and the song, prayer, or celebration that went with it. Shearing is one of those times in our calendar that needs many helping hands to gather the flock and skirt their abundant wool fleeces. It’s a true celebration of spring. Thank you to all the folks who came out and lent hardworking hands, warm hearts and big smiles to the occasion." - Cuyama Lam