Episode 108: The Night Shepherd

Josh King grew up in small town Wyoming. So he never imagined that one day he would end up being a night shepherd in the Swiss Alps.

Megan Feighery: From Wyoming Public Media, this is human nature, real stories where humans and our habitat meet. I’m Megan Feighery.

This time a Wyoming man finds himself in the Swiss Alps for a very unique opportunity. 

Josh King: All I could hear was my breathing the steps and everything was so dark. And I just thought, Okay, this must be what it's like to be an astronaut on the moon.

MF: Josh King is an interesting guy. He grew up in Basin, Wyoming, a small town in Big Horn County. He's worked in Yellowstone, he's been a teacher, speaks fluent Spanish, is currently getting his second master's degree, been a reporter and volunteered with the Peace Corps in Guatemala doing animal husbandry. But even he can't believe the latest addition to his resume. 

JK: Night shepherd in Switzerland.

MF: Yes, you heard that right. A night shepherd in Switzerland. In fact, for three months in the summer of 2023, Josh, as far as he knows, was the only paid night shepherd in all of Switzerland.

JK: You know, you got a lot of options to work on the Alps. There's a lot of job offerings, and I applied to all these jobs that wasn't getting anything. And here comes this night job. No one's gonna apply for that. And that was right.

MF: Josh accepted the job. Not only was he willing to work nights, he's actually legally allowed to work in Switzerland because his wife is Swiss. But she wouldn't be able to stay with him on the Alps, it was just gonna be Josh and the animals. Though she was occasionally able to visit.

He would be protecting a rare breed of sheep called the Valais Blacknose Sheep. If you've never seen a photo of a blacknose sheep, they are quite literally the cutest sheep on Earth.

JK: They are cartoon sheep. They're just adorable sheep, everybody falls in love with them. The sheep, they're not really raised for meat. They do use the wool. So they use it as an insulation and these really high end ski jackets that cost a million bucks.

But the owners themselves get five francs, which is basically like $5 per sheep for the wool. So in the end, they don't do it for money. There's they're very special, the bloodlines, they go back centuries.

MF: And Josh's job? To protect the sheep from wolves.

JK: Switzerland has approximately the same number of wolves as in Wyoming, but Switzerland is a lot smaller in terms of area. So the concentration was is much higher here. The reason why they hired me and they told me this from the get go is you're up there for one reason, and that's detour wolves.

They thought okay, human presence up there will will do the trick, hopefully, but it wasn't guaranteed that it would work. No one else had really tried this.

It was a group of owners who own sheep. And basically it's 25 people formed a cooperative. They come together and then they hire a shepherd. And they put all their sheep together in the summer on the Alp.

MF: Josh eventually had an interview with the President of the cooperative. 

JK: And I asked him all sorts of questions today, you know, Okay, how's this work? The logistics, the housing, the water? What's it mean to work as a night shepherd? And to his credit he was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how that works. You're just gonna have to figure it out. Because it was their first time too. So they rolled the dice on me. It was an experiment basically.

MF: Once upon a time, wolves roamed freely across Switzerland, but humans hunted them to near extinction. In 1995, wolves were spotted once again and their population in Switzerland has grown rapidly. It's estimated there's more than 300 spread across 32 packs. Many celebrated the wolf's return, but not everyone. Many saw them as a threat to livestock and humans. Most sheep owners protect their flocks by keeping them behind an electric fence. But the people Josh would be working for wanted to try a different approach. No electric fences, no weapons, just Josh and some high grade technology. But first he had to prepare for his stay in the Alps which took time and a good amount of planning.

JK: You have to buy all your food for 90 days in one go because we're going to helicopter all that food up at the beginning of the season. So I had to think okay, what can I eat on the mountain for nine days is not going to go bad that has a lot of energy. Oatmeal, was a go to, with powder milk, coffee, of course coffee, can’t go without coffee. I had that 100 grams of chocolate every day. Then I survive basically on pasta or rice with canned tuna fish. Every single day. I don't know if I can ever eat canned tuna again in my life.

MF: Josh was also bringing his dog Moose along for company. So he made sure to also fly three months worth of dog food and supplies to the Alps. There was also a lot of paperwork to fill out and training modules to complete. Josh learned all about the blacknose sheep as well as the technology he would be using.

JK: Part of the job was to at night use a pretty sophisticated drone that comes with thermal imaging. So I thought, Okay, I've never flown a drone before my life. How's this gonna work? So in Switzerland to fly a drone, you have to actually do coursework. In Switzerland, they love rules, and there's so many rules with the drone. It was kind of mind blowing, how many rules came with it. That was the first big hurdle.

Credit: Josh King

The other hurdle was just asking people and I asked so many people, experts even what should I be doing at night to prevent wolf attacks, you know, what is the best strategy. But unfortunately, their strategies were based on having sheep in electric fences. And the sheep that I was watching after they were free range sheep, so there was no fences out there. And they could not tell me, so they really had no answers.

MF: Nevertheless, Josh was excited. He didn't have a ton of information, but that was just part of the adventure. So he packed his bags, grabbed his dog Moose and headed to the Alps. When they arrived, Moose and Josh moved into their new home, a small eight by 10 foot hut, but it's not the rustic mountain cabin you might be picturing.

JK: It had solar panels. Inside was completely wood. It had one window and one door and you could open on both and get wind through. On one side was a bed is all on the other side. It had a small refrigerator, no bathroom, no running water. In the corner was a small little wood stove. And that was it. 

MF: The huts were actually designed to be moved by helicopter. Josh's hut was relocated five times to different Alps during his stay. It's a big affair every time and not cheap. 

JK: Tons of funding to try to help people on the Alps deal with wolves.

MF: Josh was the night Shepherd, meaning he finished work around 6:30 in the morning, then waited for the day shepherd to show up and relieve him. The two would chat over a cup of coffee, exchange notes and talk about the plan for that day and night. And Josh would head to bed.

JK: So basically eight in the morning. I'd I'd sleep as long as I could, but usually I'd wake up around noon. As hard as I tried. I would eat a snack, get some sun, then try to go back to bed. Never really worked that well. Some days I just kind of hung out, relax. You know wash clothes was a big deal. hauling water was a deal. I didn't have running water so I'd have to go get water in different springs all over the mountain.

MF: Around eight o'clock at night, the day shepherd would bring the sheep back down into the valley. He would try to group them together to make it easier for Josh to protect. Josh always offered to help but the day Shepherd really had it under control. In fact, Josh loves watching the day Shepherd herd and bring the sheep back across the creek every night.

JK: So I'd sit down and try to make dinner and watch watch him work all the 700 sheep in the Valley Way above me. It was like a show I loved every night. And he would bring those those sheep down and then about nine o'clock.  He would come in, say hello. And that's when my night would begin.

Credit: Josh King

MF: Josh eventually settled into a routine but it was tough and isolating. Moose the dog was great company, but not much help.

JK: My dogs terrified of sheep. Especially the bells. So the sheep were these huge bells, which are really important you can distinguish at night which sheep is which the big ‘dome’ are the older sheep, the little sheep the lambs have much smaller bells, ‘tinker, tinker tickle tickle’. And my dog is terrified of these bells. So, in the end, my dog basically was more for my mental health. You know, I, to be honest, I just did know enough going into it to really know that this was going to be so brutal. Just like it's just hard to understand how long the night is or how cold the night is when you just sit there.

So it was 90 days straight without one day off. I thought okay, it's gonna become normal. No real No, it never became normal. It was always just a fight, not fall asleep. And the best strategy for me was you gotta get out and patrol. You know, your first step out the door, it just took so much willpower. It's surprising how cold it gets at night even in the summertime just kept putting on more clothes. As the hours tick by and as the night progresses, it just gets colder and colder and colder. I never got used to it.

MF: Most nights were uneventful. Josh would listen to podcasts to pass the time and sometimes he even recorded himself on his phone.

June 25th,  22:45

With the second group in the big hollow. Pretty quiet when she was making noise kind of just belong on our fighter party kind of flattens out gets deeper for the draw. My plan is to go check the group now. See how they're doing on Monday, July 3, checking in it's 5:56. Fogged in with the sheep on the move. Overall quiet night, still fog, can't wait until the fog is gone. Fairly cold five below. Super nice thatnice morning no cold. That's my report.

MF: Josh also use the time to get acquainted with the technology.

JK: I had thermal imaging cameras up close, you can identify animals pretty easily, but at a distance it's just kind of a red blob. Which is terrifying because you're gonna think okay, what is it? Is it a is it a rabbit or is it a wolf out there. But basically, a lot of the night I would spend just sitting and scanning with a thermal imaging camera.

In that valley, there was sheep way up high as well that I couldn't see. At some point in the night, usually around two in the morning. I would walk away up there was a huge hike up and I would just go super slow. It was really steep. And it's at night. I would bring my dog and all I could hear was my breathing the steps and everything was so dark, and I'm wearing so many clothes because so damn cold. 

You're just walking so slowly. You know, you don't want to fall and die. And I just thought, Okay, this must be what it's like to be an astronaut on the moon.

MF: It was a high tech affair. Josh used drones to herd the sheep, which he had some fun with. 

JK: You could put a speaker on the drone, then speak into it. And I go to saying was always boy howdy. I would record boy howdy and use that as my sheep herding phrase.

Everybody has a different phrase. The day Shepherd thought it was hilarious. So I kept using it.

MF: It was often challenging to pass the time and Josh was really tested towards the end of his contract.

JK: The very end three weeks before we finished it did snow, and it's not like uncommon that we get snow in August. But what happened was, it's snowing so much and it stayed cold. It just didn't warm up. It was a really tough week for us because I got stuck in my hut. And we had 50 centimeters of snow.

At first, I loved it. Like okay, this is wellness retreat, I didn't have to do anything. I had books and I had my wood fire. And I had unlimited supply of wood because they helicoptered wood up to me. But after a while, it just got cabin fever. I was so ready yo start working and get out again. I didn't have skis or anything, no snowshoes, nothing, no crampons. So I got stuck in my hut because it was too dangerous. And the sheep got stuck too. They didn't move. They just stay put in small, different groups.

Some were unfortunately, separated like there was a lamb and the lamb couldn't get to its mom. So it spent four days crying out and I couldn't get to it either. It was kind of unnerving.

MF: The snow eventually melted and Josh finally left his hut. He only had a few weeks of work left. Josh hadn't had any problems with wolves so far, but they were always in the back of his mind. Then one day, he got word that neighboring flocks had been attacked.

JK: I was really hoping not them how it happened. I started believing it by the end. And as the summer progresses, there's all these attacks around me. And each time it happens, I get a lot of calls from the owners and I could feel the pressure kind of building. 

MF: The owner of the sheep Josh was protecting paid him a visit.

JK: He came up and he's asking what I'm going to do and what strategies I had. Full gas time you got to really be ready. I knew that there was a chance.

The night that the attack happened, we had just moved the sheep to a new grazing area. The area itself was rocky, there was a cliff on one side. I had set up a tarp to protect me from the elements. It wasn't raining, it wasn't even that cold. It was actually a pretty nice night.

About two o'clock I did patrol. So I went up, found some groups that shipped. I had no idea that were even there. I couldn't see them from where I was. And so I started thinking okay, where else are the all these sheep? How many sheep Am I not able to see? Which always is kind of unnerving because your job is to protect the sheep and if you can't see him you have no you know, you have no idea where they're at.

A little bit before four in the morning, I heard the bells of the sheep way up high. And you always hear bells and sheep they move all night and so it's normal to hear bells. But there was a lot more sound coming from these bells. And so I thought okay, what's going on? Is it an attack? I just wasn't sure. And so I kept listening and the bells kept going. At one point, I look up the cliff with the thermal imaging camera, and I see a group of about 20 sheep all lined up against this cliff. They were moving around a lot.

Credit: Josh King

And then I thought, okay, there's an attack. Something's pushing them, scaring them so that they're, they're getting close to this cliff. I thought, Okay, I gotta get up there. To get up there took about 20 minutes. It wasn't so easy. I had to kind of slowly work my way up. When I'm going up there, I can't see the sheep anymore. I'm not far away.

And I get up there and the sheep are grouped up. They were circling each other. So they are all in one big group. Each sheep was trying to get in the center of the group. So it was just kind of this constant swirl of sheep. I've never seen it before. Something happened. I started looking around to see if I could find a dead sheep. Didn't find anything.

I wasn't scared the wolf was going to attack me. No one's been attacked in Switzerland by a wolf, as far as I know. The wolf is really kind of a ghost. It's out there. I know it's out there. But I'm not gonna see it.

MF: Josh was almost positive, there had been a wolf attack, but he couldn't be sure it was still too dark. So Josh made his way back down the cliff to wait until morning. Once it was light, he made his way back up the cliff to check things out.

JK: And there in the field was a dead lamb. The lamb wasn't eaten, but I could identify bite wounds. You're not supposed to touch the lamb. They need to bring in an expert to see if it was indeed a wolf. And the game warden did confirm that it was. Basically after that the owners they decided okay, we need to keep the sheep one group and night together.

For me, it was tough. Once a wolf kills the sheep, well, then you wonder if it's going to happen again, a and b. Now the wolf is in trouble. The rule in Switzerland is they can use lethal killing. If the wolf kills six or seven sheep on one Alp. The Alp next to us that happened, it killed seven sheep.

So there was already a Game Warden on the other elk spending the night trying to shoot a wolf. We didn't have seven sheep dead. But they thought that it was the same Wolf. But I always thought to myself, how did they know it was the same wolf? I think they were just assuming it would be the same wolf.

MF: Four days later, Josh got word that the game warden had shot and killed a wolf.

JK: After that everybody kind of relaxed again. I had mixed feelings about that. The thing is about the sheep is that some of these families, they've had these sheep three or four generations. All these sheep have a name. They're almost like pets to these sheep owners. If it's a confirm wolf kill, then you can do get compensation. The money they don't care about at all. They don't do it for money.

But basically, I love seeing wolves. I was working in Yellowstone in 1995 when they were reintroduced. So I was very excited to see wolves. The other angle from this is by being a night Shepherd, you're actually protecting the wolves too because the less problems they get into the more likely that it's going to survive.

But I think if you want wolves and you want livestock to coexist, there's going to be casualties on both sides. And they're just going to be a fact of life. That will support they don't want to see any wolves killed and I see that. But the livestock owners don't want to see their livestock killed either.

But regardless of how much money and how much technology you throw at that problem, there's still going to be issues, there’s still going to be dead sheep and there's probably going to still be dead wolves at the end of the summer. You know, when your entire job the entire summer is to try to make all the sheep come down without getting killed, even one sheep, you kind of feel like you failed.

MF: Even though they lost a sheep, neighboring herds using electric fences had actually lost a lot more. One had 17 sheep killed in a single night. So overall, the owners consider the night Shepherd experiment a success. They think Josh's presence that night was enough to scare the wolf off. And that's likely why the lamb wasn't eaten. For Josh's part, he says he's proud of what he did.

JK: The question I wanted to solve is can domesticate animals exist with wolves? You know, for me, I'm on both sides. I like agriculture and I like wolves. So I'm right in the middle of it, it's a tough place to be. 

So my conclusion is of course we can coexist. However, both sides are going to lose animals and that's just going to have to be particle existence.

JK: There's two ways to look at being the night Shepherd, are you out there protecting the sheep for you up there protecting the Wolf or are you doing both? I was trying to do both. But it's never perfect.

MF: Our storyteller today was Josh King. Josh, his wife and his dog Moose are currently living in Vienna, Austria, just enjoying life to the fullest. Josh is teaching English right now, but the sheep owners have actually asked him to come back next year and be the night Shepherd again. Josh initially said no. But a few months later, he changed his mind. Josh says he wants to tackle the challenge again, take what he's learned and use it next summer. The job was tough, but Josh says it was also really rewarding. And he learned a lot. 

Josh sent me a ton of photos from his time in Switzerland, including pictures of the world's cutest sheep. So make sure you're following us on social media to see those. We're @humanaturepodcast on Instagram and Facebook. on X, formerly Twitter, we're @humanaturepod. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify, make sure to leave us a five star review. It really helps us out and helps more people discover the show.

I’m Megan Feighery This episode was produced by me with help from Melodie Edwards and Steven Carroll. Our theme song is by Caught A Ghost. HumaNature is a production of Wyoming Public Media.