by Al Kamen
The Washington Post
Sue Ellen Wooldridge, deputy chief of staff for Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, discussed her qualifications for the job last week with about 200 federal wildlife biologists, enviros and others gathered in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Wooldridge, a lawyer who had worked in the California attorney general’s office, had so little experience with Interior Department issues that, when she was tapped for the post, she had to look up the Web site to see what the department’s responsibilities were.
But she wagered that she was uniquely qualified in one respect: She was the only appointee who had ever castrated a sheep — with her teeth.
And not just one sheep. Seems Wooldridge grew up on a farm north of Sacramento and the family had some sheep. Each year, in late spring “you need to do a series of things,” she explained later. The lambs are branded with paint, the tails are cut off and the males — “partly to fatten them and partly to make sure there’s no breeding from sheep you don’t want to breed” — are castrated.
There are two methods commonly used. One involves a very tight rubber band. Problem with that is sometimes it doesn’t do a complete job. “So ranchers in my area tended to use the ‘bite-them-off’ method,” she said, the feeling being “teeth are good grippers.”
It does not appear to be particularly painful for the lambs, she said, although when they’re lifted up, the lamb is likely thinking “this can’t be good.” Some lambs “don’t make a peep” during the procedure, although it’s clear the lamb “is not terribly happy.”
Then “you spit it out into a bucket and then someone will roll it in flour, and usually someone will cook them up to be eaten.”
Wooldridge estimates she did this “fewer than 50” times. Good training for Harvard Law School?
“Absolutely.”
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