Salvaging Sheep

The state is conducting periodic helicopter sheep shoots on Mauna Kea to control the population. These feral animals are destroying the native Palila bird's habitat. Some see the hunt as a sad and savage event, my husband sees it as an opportunity. Our freezer is now full.

The sheep salvage sounds like an experience I wish I wouldn't have missed. A helicopter herds the animals into one area then someone in the chopper shoots them all. The bodies are then loaded into a sling and flown to a field where trucks of salvagers like my husband eagerly wait. A massive ball or legs, horns and filthy fur is placed in the grass and a free-for-all ensues as the meat lovers charge towards the pile of carcusus.

Meat Grinder

Chris managed to bag two sheep this way. We ended up with about 40 pounds of meat that we divided equally into roasts, steaks and ground sheep. A highlight of the project was using Chris' homemade meat grinder. Yes, homemade. He was at a farm auction years ago in Oregon where he purchased for five bucks some meat grinder attacments. An American made motor salvaged from a broken down GE dryer, a board and some wiring and wa-la! I am told this meat grinder has served him for years and has even processed a bear.

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For the birds

The federal government continued this week their efforts to eradicate or at least control the feral sheep population on Mauna Kea. The sheep eat native mamane trees, which the endemic and endangered palila bird rely on for food.

Hunters don't like this destruction of their game, so as a consolation, the government makes the meat available to those who sign up in advance and take the trek up the mountain to salvage the carcasses. Chris and I went up Thursday and got three nice sheep! We could have had at least one or two more, but we knew three would max out our freezer space.

Fifteen trucks showed up Thursday to receive the free sheep and I counted that at least 60 sheep were given out, but we left early, so the number may have been even higher. They shot 44 sheep the previous day. A helicopter rounds up the sheep and shoots them, then drops them off in a sling in batches of 10-15. Then people take turns choosing a sheep.

Chris has done this before, and our fabulous meat grinder was featured in this previous blog post. For the first time I went with Chris just for the experience. I learned a few things about butchering an animal, different cuts of meat and criteria for choosing a good sheep.

If anything struck me, it was how comfortable all the attendees were in the presence of animal carcasses and how they knew just what to do. Some folks I know probably thought it was strange I would take the day off to skin dead animals, but the people there saw the practicality of not letting this perfectly good meat go to waste. After all, it's organic, local, free-range, grass-fed meat. People were planning to make smoke meat, jerky, and one lady saved all of the hoofs to make musical rattles and drumsticks. We packaged ours into steaks, roasts and ground meat. We've enjoyed the meat in the past, and two of the animals we got were young ewes so we're hoping for some good, tender eating.




The helicopter brings a sling of sheep.

These guys brought a wheelbarrow.

Leg of lamb and some sheep steaks.

We are blessed with a full freezer!