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Raising sheep is a way of life for many people in Navajo Nation, but a host of factors threaten that livelihood.WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Whenever Amy Begaye's extended family butchered a sheep, she was given what she considered easy tasks — holding the legs and catching the blood with a bowl. She was never given the knife.
Beginning in 1864, the U.S. Army forced several thousand Navajo into exile during what came to be known as the Long Walk; they returned to destroyed homes and livestock. Some hid with their sheep and survived, only for the government to again kill thousands of sheep during forced herd reductions in the early 1930s.
A mega drought across the Western U.S. has sucked moisture from the land, leaving cracks and barrenness in its wake. The next count of sheep isn't planned until 2024, but Navajo Department of Agriculture officials say the number is lower than the 200,000 counted in 2017. Adding to the problem is the long-standing issue of water scarcity on Navajo Nation, where roughly a third of people lack reliable access to clean water.
But Craig doesn't just haul water because of drought. The land where his family lives was contaminated in 1979 by a tailing spill from a uranium mine — he points over the ridge in the direction of Leo Watchman, director of the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture, says grazing management is the worst it's ever been on the reservation. Among other things, he cites bureaucratic inconsistencies between the federal government and Navajo jurisdictions and holdups on environmental studies that determine how many animals can be kept on any given area of land.
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