How this California business puts animals to work preventing wildfires

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this month aimed at providing funding for fire hazard mitigation using “prescribed grazing.”

“We use our animals in a very special, targeted type of manner, very different to traditional ranching with grazing animals,” said Cole Bush, owner and operator of Shepherdess Land & Livestock in California’s Ojai Valley. “I run herds of up to 700 sheep and goats. And myself and my team of shepherds move our animals from site to site given the time of year.” 

Bush calls herself a “modern-day shepherdess,” but she did not grow up living an agrarian lifestyle. Click the audio player above to hear her talk about her shepherdess origin story and how her company uses sheep, goats and dogs as firefighters.