[pyrnet] CHAT: Great Pyrenees in the Media

["Julie Hansen" <julie@northernspruce.com>]

Hello everyone.  In the Sept. issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine, Great
Pyrenees appear in an article about the recently announced plan of the Fish
and Wildlife Service to reintroduce grizzly bears (25 or more over a 5-yr.
period) to the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness in central Idaho and western
Montana, where there have gone extinct.  Much of the article is about a
sheep rancher in a part of Montana where grizzlies have returned on their
own, and his efforts to deal with them.  Here's where the article refers to
Pyrs:

"Since the first attack, sixteen years ago, he has lost sheep to grizzlies
every year but one. He experimented with different guard animals: First he
bought five peacocks, for $500, but the noisy birds didn't scare off bears
at night. Then he bought a guard llama for $1,000; it wasn't aggressive
enough to drive away a kitten. Next he bought three Great Pyrenees dogs, at
$300 apiece. The dogs would at least
                    get within a few yards of a bear and bark, but they
wouldn't confront a grizzly and drive it off."

Stories like this will certainly be used to argue against the reintroduction
of grizzlies.  For those of you on the list with more knowledge about Pyrs
as LGDs, what do you think?  Does this sound like typical behavior, or did
the rancher happen to acquire Pyrs with below-average guardian abilities?  I
was always under the impression that Pyrs were used historically to protect
sheep from bears, so I would think that they could be effective today as
well.

P.S.  The full article can be found at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/whitman.htm


Julie Hansen
julie@northernspruce.com
Bellingham, WA.