BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — More than 1,000 angry shepherds broke through police lines onto the grounds of Romania’s Parliament on Tuesday to protest a law that regulates the number of sheepdogs they can use and bans them from grazing sheep during the winter.
Riot police fired tear gas at the shepherds, some of whom were dressed in floor-length sheepskins and blowing horns, to keep them from charging at the Parliament building. There was a tense standoff between hundreds of riot police, some mounted on horses, and the shepherds. They didn’t bring their dogs to the demonstration.
Farmers are angry about a recent law that will limit the number of dogs that can guard their sheep and also at a ban on grazing from December to April. They say it is an attack on their rights and centuries of sheep-rearing traditions in rural Romania. The law says that shepherds can use a single sheepdog for sheep grazing on the plain and a maximum of three for mountain flocks. If shepherds flout the law, extra dogs can be shot.
“This law is an aberration. It is unconstitutional,” Ionica Nechifor, general secretary of the Romovis sheep farming federation, told The Associated Press. “They are trying to take away our sheep farms.”
Sheep farming forms the backbone of rural Romania, home to some 10 million sheep and 1.5 million goats. Supporters of the law say it will protect animals targeted by hunters, such as wild boar and deer, from the Carpathian shepherd dog, a large indigenous canine. They also say that keeping the sheep off the pastures will protect the environment. Hunting is a popular pastime among Romania’s elite.
About 4,000 shepherds traveled from rural parts of Romania for the protest, some taking buses about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from western Romania.
“We can’t live without sheepdogs, which scare off the wild animals,” said Traian Nica, a 49-year-old shepherd. “We want our rights back.”
Grigore Popa, 68, waved a big stick and shouted: “I was born among the sheep and we will cut lawmakers’ heads off.”
Government spokesman Dan Suciu said Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos had been called Tuesday by the chairman of the Senate and asked to modify the law. Ciolos is trying to find a legal solution to satisfy the demands, Suciu said.
Agriculture Minister Achim Irimescu said Tuesday he supported the shepherds’ demands, in an interview with Digi24 television station.
“We have to change the law. It is urgent,” he said.
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