. . . but Ewe Turns Are OK

Why did the sheep cross the road Sunday?

To get to the other side, of course, where the grass is more plentiful.

Directed by hooting shepherds across a Ventura Freeway overpass at Las Virgenes Road, about 1,300 sheep headed for greener pastures just after dawn.

The quarter-mile journey is made annually to give the grass on an 8,000-acre ranch on the south side of the freeway a chance to grow, said Hank Heeber of Agoura, co-owner of the black-and-white, milling, bleating flock. Heeber owns a tire store in Chatsworth and invests in the sheep “for fun” and the profit in selling wool and lamb meat, he said.

For the next month, the sheep will graze on a ranch in Oak Park, Heeber said. In March, the sheep will be herded back across the overpass.

The process held up light traffic on Las Virgenes Road for about 20 minutes Sunday. Officers from the California Highway Patrol were on hand to prevent mishaps.

Occasionally, lambs strayed off the road to the highway, but the five shepherds easily shooed the timid creatures back onto the overpass.

The flock is one of the few remaining in Los Angeles County, animal experts and sheep producers say. In 1969, the first year that the Los Angeles County Veterinary Services registered sheep in the county, 63,350 head were tallied, said Irvelle Black, a livestock inspector with the agency.

Local sheep production has dwindled ever since, the services’ count shows. In 1976, 56,000 sheep grazed in the county. By 1986, that number declined to 39,763 sheep, most of them in the Antelope Valley.

“Soon there’ll be houses here,” said Heeber, gesturing to the hills that were just beginning to take shape as the sun came up Sunday. “But that’s what happens when you lease pastures and don’t own them--you don’t get to call the shots.”