Horses

Broodmares in the Sparrowk Livestock Horse breeding program carry Driftwood, Dry Doc, Gay Bar King, Flit Bar, Doc Bar, Doc’s Cowboy, Parker’s Trouble, Scottish and Nu Cash bloodlines.

The colts are raised in outside country where they learn to travel long distances and handle hilly and rocky terrain.  For the most part, the colts are started on the ranch and are exposed to all ranch work, including gathering, sorting, doctoring and branding.

The current herd stallion is Scottish Bar Flit, a 1991 Buckskin by Scudder Scott by Scottish by Nick W.  Scottish Bar Flit’s dam is Our High Tide by Bar Ours by Flit Bar.

Sparrowk family members, employees and others are riding many of his offspring on ranches and in the arena.  At a recent team roping in Lakeview, Oregon five different ropers rode Sparrowk raised horses.  Others are being used for ranch rodeo competition, pole bending, goat tying, barrel racing and breakaway roping while some are being enjoyed as pleasure and family horses.

Conservation

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation honored the Sparrowks with the 2002 Chuck Yeager Award for their work in protecting the conservation values on their ranches and for their involvement in the creation of the Oregon Rangeland Trust.

Bar One Cattle Company’s Sierra Valley Ranch, just 35 miles from Reno, Nevada, is now protected from urban sprawl by a conservation easement funded by California’s Wildlife Conservation Board and The Packard Foundation and held and administered by the California Rangeland Trust.  The Sparrowks and their Sierra Valley Ranch partners, Rick Montera and Dick Monfort, both Colorado cattlemen, are committed to preserving the ranch as a working cattle ranch and in enhancing the fish and wildlife habitat that occurs on the ranch.

The Sparrowks have been working on conservation projects and creek restoration on their Drews Valley Ranch, outside of Lakeview, Oregon for the past several years.  Over eight miles of streams flow through the ranch and are habitat for redband trout and other fish species. The ranch offers habitat for mammals such as elk, deer, cougar, bobcat, bear, and many smaller species and waterfowl habitat attracts Canada geese, Trumpeter Swan, several varieties of ducks and other migrating birds.  Bald and Golden eagles visit the ranch along with Sandhill Cranes, several species of hawks and songbirds.

Partners on conservation projects on the ranch include the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Trust for Public Land, The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited, Sustainable Northwest and private consultants.

The Murphy Creek Project is a landowner driven creek restoration project involving eight neighbors who live and/or work along the creek outside of Clements, California. Murphy Creek is a tributary of the Mokelumne River.   Funded by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and CalFed, the project includes the removal of fish passage barriers and non-native plant species, which will be replaced by native species.  Historically, the creek has been spawning habitat for salmon, but with barriers in place and overgrowth of vegetation along the creek it is no longer being used by Chinook and steelhead for spawning. At the present time juvenile salmon use the creek as rearing habitat and it is hoped that spawning salmon will return as the restoration progresses.

 Partners and supporters in the Project, besides NFWF and CalFed, include landowners Steve and Melissa Holmes, Russ and Jessie Biglow, Mary Shallenberger, Dean Misczynski, Jack and Beverly Sparrowk, Dick and Genevieve Deller, Chuck and Nancy Biglow, Jeff and Wendy Sparrowk, Joe and Cordi Atkinson and the East Bay Municipal Utility District.  EBMUD has made valuable contributions to the effort with its biologists’ time and expertise.  The California Department of Water Resources, the California Conservation Corps, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, UC Davis graduate students, California Department of Fish and Game, and the San Joaquin County Resource Conservation District have given additional help and expertise.