Maasai man, Eastern Serengeti, October 2006

A herder is a

pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...

worker responsible for the care and management of a

herd A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called ''herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals. The term ''herd'' is ...

or flock of

domestic animal This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation. This includ ...

s, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with

nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

transhumant Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower vall ...

management of stock, or with

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

grazing. The work is often done either on foot or

mounted Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

. Depending on the type of animal being herd, the english language can give different professional names, for example,

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...

for cows,

shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' 'herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations, i ...

for sheep, or

goatherd A goatherd or goatherder is a person who herds goats as a vocational activity. It is similar to a shepherd who herds sheep. Goatherds are most commonly found in regions where goat populations are significant; for instance, in Africa and South Asi ...

for goat.

Terminology

Herders may be distinguished by sex (''e.g.'', herdsman, herdswoman or herdboy) or by the type of livestock, for example camelherd, cowherd, duckherd,

By country

China

Tibetan herding communities living in the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

in the

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

of southwest China continued to graze herds on common lands even after the 1982

Household responsibility system The household responsibility system ( zh, s=家庭联产承包责任制, t=家庭聯產承包責任制, p=jiātíng liánchǎn chéngbāo zérènzhì), or contract responsibility system, was a practice in China, first adopted in agriculture in 1979 ...

. Several reasons have been given for the endurance of the traditional pastoral lifestyle: *complex

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

prevents the division of common grazing lands among individual households *

yaks The domestic yak (''Bos grunniens''), also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox or hairy cattle, is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan Plateau, Kachin Sta ...

require free grazing and become ill in fenced pasture *rotation of grazing spots

Grassland degradation Grassland degradation, also called vegetation or steppe degradation, is a biotic disturbance in which grass struggles to grow or can no longer exist on a piece of land due to causes such as overgrazing, burrowing of small mammals, and climate ...

has been an issue. Herding communities and their leaders have taken steps to reach a consensus about

sustainable grazing Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...

practices. These include developing the community political organization to enforce commitments to seasonal

rotational grazing In agriculture, rotational grazing, as opposed to continuous grazing, describes many systems of pasturing, whereby livestock are moved to portions of the pasture, called paddocks, while the other portions rest. Each paddock must provide all the n ...

By cattle type

Cows

There are numerous regional types of cow herder, many with a specific name; these include the stockman of Australia, the

buttero A buttero (, plural butteri) or cavalcante is a mounted herder, usually of horses, of cattle, or of buffaloes, in Italy, predominantly in the Maremma region of Tuscany and northern Lazio, or in the Pontine Marshes to the south. History The ...

campino A campino () is a cattle herder in the Portuguese region of Ribatejo. Campinos work on horse-back, using a long pole (a ''pampilho'' or lance) to manage and direct the herd. Campinos are also known for their distinctive attire, which consists o ...

csikós The csikós is the mounted horse-herdsman of Hungary. The csikós tradition is closely associated with the Hungarian ''puszta'', in recent times particularly in the environs of Debrecen and Hortobágy National Park. It is also closely linke ...

gardian A is a mounted cattle herdsman in the Camargue delta in Provence, southern France. The work is akin to that of the Mexican , the North American cowboy, the Tuscan buttero or the Portuguese . Gardians ride Camargue horses. See also * Camargu ...

and

gulyás Gulyás may refer to: * Gulyás (herdsman), a Hungarian cattle-herdsman * Goulash, a Hungarian soup or stew * Gulyásleves, a Hungarian soup {{Disambig ...

in Europe, the

buckaroo A buckaroo is a cowboy of the Great Basin and California region of the United States, from an Anglicization of the Spanish word ''vaquero''. Buckaroo or Buckaroos may also refer to: Music * The Buckaroos, the backing band for country singer Buck ...

charro Charro has several meanings, but it generally refers to Mexican horse riders, who maintain traditional dress, such as some form of sombrero, which in Mexican Spanish are called ''sombrero de charro'' (a charro's hat). The charros could also ...

and

vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

in North America, and the

gaucho A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and the south of Chilean Patagonia. Gauchos became greatly admired and ...

huaso A huaso () is a Chilean countryman and skilled horseman, similar to the United States, American cowboy, the Mexico, Mexican charro (and its northern equivalent, the vaquero), the gaucho of Argentina, Uruguay and Rio Grande Do Sul, and the Austr ...

llanero A (, ‘plainsman’) is a South American herder. The name is taken from the Llanos grasslands occupying eastern Colombia and western-central Venezuela. During the Spanish American wars of independence, lancers and cavalry served in both ar ...

morochuco The Morochucos are the cowboys of the plains of the Peruvian Andes, living mainly in the Region of Ayacucho. They raise cattle and tame horses for their livelihood, and they engage in other typical activities of a cattle-horseman cowboy. They are ...

Terminology

By country

China

By cattle type

Cows

Goats

Sheep

See also

References