Make Way for the Flock: Hundreds of Sheep Head Through German City to Their Winter Pastures
Introduction: A Living Connection Between Medieval and Modern Worlds
Every autumn, a remarkable spectacle repeats itself in German cities, particularly in Nuremberg—a sight that has persisted for over six centuries despite radical transformations in European society, economy, and technology. Hundreds of sheep, their bells jingling softly, flood through downtown streets alongside shepherds clad in traditional clothing and accompanied by border collies trained to manage the massive herds. These animals are not participating in a historical reenactment or cultural festival performance. Rather, they are engaged in a serious economic and ecological enterprise: the seasonal transhumance migration that takes grazing animals from summer pastures in higher elevations toward warmer, more productive winter territories. This annual phenomenon represents one of Europe's most enduring agricultural traditions and offers contemporary societies a compelling example of how ancient practices can adapt and persist within modern urban environments. The sheep migration challenges fundamental assum
The significance of these annual migrations extends far beyond the romantic imagery of pastoral movement through urban centers. The sheep represent living connections to Europe's medieval past, when transhumance systems encompassed vast territories and sustained entire agricultural economies. They embody knowledge systems about animal management, landscape ecology, and seasonal cycles that modern industrial agriculture has largely abandoned. They generate documented environmental benefits that contemporary scientific research is only beginning to fully quantify. Most importantly, they represent the persistence of human choices to maintain practices valued for their cultural, economic, and ecological contributions despite systemic pressures encouraging abandonment in favor of more industrially efficient alternatives. Understanding transhumance requires engaging with history, ecology, economics, and sociology simultaneously, recognizing how these dimensions intertwine in contemporary practice.
The Medieval Origins: Legal Foundations for Pastoral Movement
The transhumance routes that contemporary shepherds follow originated in medieval times, when political reorganizations created opportunities for long-distance animal movement across previously fragmented territories. The Holy Roman Empire's complex political structures initially prevented coordinated pastoral systems across large regions. However, beginning around 1300 and accelerating through the 15th century, shepherds successfully negotiated formal agreements with city councils and landowners granting them rights to move animals through specific corridors. These were not casual arrangements but legally binding contracts establishing obligations and responsibilities on both sides. The 1418 agreement between Nuremberg's city government and regional shepherds exemplifies this formalization. This medieval contract established specific terms: shepherds possessed explicit rights to conduct their flocks through the city during designated seasonal periods, in exchange for monetary compensation to municipal autho
These agreements represented recognition of mutual benefit that transcended immediate economic transaction. Shepherds gained access to distant territories that offered superior grazing compared to depleted summer lands. Cities received revenue from pastoral operations and maintained valuable connections to rural agricultural systems that provisioned urban populations with wool, meat, dairy products, and other pastoral commodities. Landowners gained access to natural fertilization from moving herds without investment in manure production or distribution systems. The arrangement proved sufficiently flexible and mutually beneficial to persist across centuries, adapting to changing circumstances while retaining its core principle: urban and rural communities could coexist through deliberate accommodation of pastoral movement.
Archaeological and textual evidence reveals that Alpine transhumance operated at even greater antiquity, with definitive proof of alpine farming beginning in the Bronze Age around 2200-800 BCE. More controversial palynological studies suggest pasture use at high altitudes beginning as early as 4500 BCE, though the exact nature and intensity of such early usage remains unclear. The documentary evidence becomes progressively more certain as it approaches medieval times. A 1204 document references a summer pasture in the Alpine region, establishing the antiquity of formal Alpine transhumance arrangements. By the High Middle Ages, transhumance had become economically and socially embedded throughout European mountain regions and the plains regions adjacent to significant mountain systems.
The scale of medieval transhumance strained contemporary imagination. Historical records from the Swabian region indicate that transhumant shepherds collectively managed herds numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The territory dedicated to this system covered approximately 400 kilometers east-west and 300 kilometers north-south—an area larger than many contemporary European nations. Summer grazing lands encompassed 17,000 to 23,000 hectares, while winter territories required 35,000 to 45,000 hectares. This territorial expansion reflected both the economic importance of transhumance and the willingness of medieval societies to dedicate substantial resources to supporting pastoral movement across their territories.
Understanding Wanderschäferei: The German Transhumance System
The German system of livestock transhumance carries the distinctive term [translate:Wanderschäferei], literally translating to the "wandering of shepherds." This professional practice involves the seasonal movement of mobile shepherds and their flocks between specialized winter and summer pastures, covering distances typically ranging from 150 to 250 kilometers over multi-month journeys. Unlike settled agriculture where livestock remains within relatively fixed locations, Wanderschäferei practitioners must undertake substantial migrations responding to seasonal changes in grazing quality and availability. The typical journey lasts two to four months each way, with shepherds managing flocks during continuous outdoor movement through diverse landscapes and weather conditions.
The organization of transhumance required and continues to require sophisticated operational knowledge and logistics. Shepherds accumulated expertise in assessing grazing quality across different territories and seasons, understanding which regions provided optimal forage at specific times. They developed skill in managing diverse animals, as flocks contained sheep varying in age, health status, and productivity. They employed assistants and maintained specialized herding dogs bred and trained for specific management tasks. Many shepherds operated as entrepreneurs managing complex supply chains, maintaining wagons serving as mobile dwellings during multi-month migrations. The largest historical operations functioned as businesses employing dozens of people and generating substantial capital and wealth.
Contemporary German transhumance operates on a much reduced scale compared to medieval practices. Modern research documents approximately 230 full-time shepherds remaining in Baden-Württemberg, the region where transhumance has retained greatest vitality in contemporary Germany. Of these 230 full-time practitioners, only 100 to 120 still practice traditional long-distance transhumance involving multi-month migrations. In Bavaria, transhumance has virtually disappeared as an economic practice, persisting only in ceremonial and cultural contexts. Across all of Germany, the number of shepherds has declined dramatically from the thousands who practiced the profession in previous centuries. The remaining practitioners represent the smallest professional groups in the country, typically managing herds exceeding 1,000 animals and maintaining traditions through personal commitment rather than economic incentive.
The Routes: Pathways Established Through Centuries
The specific routes that contemporary shepherds follow reflect centuries of accumulated knowledge and legal establishment. The major transhumance corridors lead from the Swabian-Franconian highlands—regions at approximately 400-600 meters elevation where spring rains and moderate summer temperatures produce abundant but seasonal forage—toward winter territories in the Rhine, Main, and Danube valleys and around Lake Constance. These lowland areas, roughly 200-300 meters elevation, offered superior winter grazing where sheep could subsist on residual vegetation and stubble fields after grain harvests. The journeys typically covered 150-250 kilometers, requiring multi-month travel during spring ascents and autumn descents.
The routes themselves followed logical geographic patterns developed over generations of practical experience. Early shepherds discovered and tested various pathways, eventually establishing routes that optimized both animal welfare and human efficiency. These routes were not arbitrary paths but represented centuries of accumulated knowledge about water sources, shelter locations, quality grazing areas at specific seasons, and human population centers where passage agreements existed. Many of these pathways acquired legal status through repeated use and formal municipal recognition. The combination of practical efficiency and legal establishment made these routes remarkably durable, persisting across centuries despite technological changes in transportation and land use patterns.
Nuremberg's central position on these ancient routes explains its continued accommodation of transhumance passage. The city sits along a major north-south corridor connecting Alpine summer pastures to lower-elevation winter territories. The 1418 agreement established Nuremberg's specific role in this system, designating the city as a critical waypoint where animals passed through and where shepherds paid specified fees in exchange for passage rights. The city maintained this arrangement because it generated revenue and connected urban and rural economies. Even as industrial development and urbanization created pressures against pastoral movement, Nuremberg's historical commitment to transhumance and its cultural identity continued to recognize value in preserving the tradition.
The Ecology of Transhumance: Modern Science Validates Ancient Practice
Contemporary ecological research has emerged to validate what shepherds have long understood intuitively: transhumance systems generate environmental benefits that industrial agriculture cannot match. Grazing livestock moving continuously across landscapes consume vegetation in patterns that enhance rather than degrade soil quality and plant diversity. Multiple peer-reviewed studies document that traditional transhumance practices improve ecosystems through mechanisms including seed dispersal, natural fertilization, biodiversity enhancement, and carbon sequestration.
A single transhumant sheep disperses approximately 5,000 viable seeds daily through consumption of vegetation and subsequent excretion across traversed territories. Over a multi-month migration of 150-250 kilometers, individual sheep effectively function as living seed-dispersal systems, planting vegetation across vast areas and contributing significantly to forest regeneration and landscape diversity. This natural seed dispersal mechanism distributes plant genetics across distances and terrains that would be impossible for seeds to traverse unaided. Each sheep simultaneously generates more than 3 kilograms of nutrient-rich manure daily, naturally fertilizing grasslands and restoring depleted soils without chemical inputs or industrial processing requirements. This natural fertilization mechanism simultaneously improves soil structure, stimulates plant growth, and produces long-term soil carbon sequestration that reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Recent scientific studies specifically measuring ecosystem multifunctionality document that transhumant grazing enhances what researchers term "ecosystem multifunctionality"—the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions including biodiversity, forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Research in the Cantabrian Mountains comparing grazed areas to long-term grazing exclusion zones revealed that cessation of transhumant grazing significantly hindered biodiversity and forage production functions, though it did enhance carbon sequestration function in some scenarios. The overall ecosystem multifunctionality index decreased significantly in areas where grazing had been excluded, supporting the sustainability of traditional transhumance livestock grazing for promoting conservation of grasslands and their ecosystem functions.
The grazing patterns maintained through transhumance prevent forest succession from converting grasslands to closed-canopy woodland ecosystems. This management preserves open habitat ecosystems that support specialized plants and animals dependent on grassland conditions. The distinctive juniper heaths of the Swabian Alb represent a prime example—these landscapes that today attract conservation attention and tourism precisely because of their rarity and biodiversity value exist specifically because of continuous sheep grazing by transhumant shepherds across centuries. Without continued pastoral management, these distinctive ecosystems would rapidly transform through natural succession, converting from grasslands to forests and eliminating the species dependent on open habitat conditions.
Research on carbon sequestration demonstrates that grazing stimulates grass growth, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Grasslands globally store approximately 20-25 percent of terrestrial carbon, with transhumant grazing patterns potentially optimizing carbon capture and storage mechanisms. The natural nutrient distribution created by moving herds produces soil carbon accumulation across vast territories. Additionally, transhumance systems consume fewer inputs and generate lower carbon footprints than industrial livestock farming. Sheep feed themselves through grazing rather than requiring cultivated feed grown through energy-intensive agriculture. Shepherds move animals to food rather than transporting food to animals, reducing logistical emissions. The extensive grazing patterns eliminate pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and other chemical inputs typical of industrial systems.
Nuremberg's Exceptional Status: A City Welcoming Pastoral Tradition
Among all contemporary European cities, Nuremberg occupies a distinctive position regarding transhumance accommodation and practice. Where other European cities have largely abandoned or severely restricted traditional pastoral movement through urban centers, Nuremberg continues to facilitate regular transhumance passage through downtown areas. This ongoing practice makes Nuremberg exceptional among major cities. Other European locations, including Madrid, which reestablished its transhumance festival after a century-long hiatus, typically restrict sheep movement to ceremonial occasions or specially designated routes avoiding downtown commercial districts. While such efforts celebrate cultural heritage, they represent transformation of transhumance from ongoing economic practice to cultural performance. Nuremberg remains unique in permitting regular transhumance passage through the heart of the city as actual livestock movement rather than ceremonial spectacle.
Each autumn, Nuremberg deliberately chooses to close central streets to vehicular traffic, temporarily transforming downtown areas into pastoral corridors. Pedestrians gather along designated routes to observe the migration. Municipal authorities coordinate with shepherds to ensure safe passage while managing logistics of urban animal movement. The city has consciously integrated this tradition into its cultural identity, recognizing transhumance as part of its heritage and contemporary character. Local restaurants near the migration routes prepare special meals celebrating the event. Media outlets provide extensive coverage. Educational institutions develop programming explaining transhumance traditions and contemporary shepherding practices. The city consciously chooses to maintain this tradition despite complications and disruptions it creates for normal urban functions.
This choice reflects contemporary recognition of values beyond immediate economic calculation. Nuremberg's municipal government understands that cultural continuity and connection to agricultural heritage provide benefits not easily quantified in traditional financial accounting. The opportunity for urban residents to witness pastoral traditions firsthand, to see their direct relationship with food production and natural systems, carries educational and cultural value difficult to monetize. Tourists come specifically to witness the annual event, contributing to the city's economy through hospitality spending on accommodations, meals, and entertainment. The tradition distinguishes Nuremberg from the homogenizing effects of globalization that increasingly make cities resemble one another superficially. Most significantly, Nuremberg's accommodation of transhumance demonstrates societal capacity to maintain practices aligned with heritage and environmental values when communities commit to doing so.
Contemporary Economic Challenges: The Struggle for Viability
The decision to practice transhumance in contemporary Germany represents a countercultural act, a conscious rejection of easier alternatives and conventional career paths that offer greater financial security. Shepherds managing these migrations typically oversee flocks exceeding 1,000 animals, requiring constant vigilance, physical exertion throughout all weather conditions, and extensive knowledge spanning animal behavior, disease prevention, and landscape management. These professionals face an ongoing and intensifying economic battle. Research documents that the average income from shepherding alone proves insufficient to support households by modern standards. The approximately 1,000 full-time mobile shepherds remaining in Germany represent one of the smallest professional groups in the nation.
The profitability crisis stems from multiple interconnected sources. Meat and wool prices remain depressed in global markets where industrial agriculture produces commodities at deliberately suppressed costs through economies of scale and subsidized inputs. The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, theoretically designed to support farmers, allocates subsidies based on land area rather than the labor-intensive nature of shepherding. This system inadvertently penalizes precisely the practices that generate documented ecological benefits. A shepherd managing 2,000 sheep across vast territories receives substantially less support than a farmer controlling similar acreage through industrial crop monoculture producing identical commodity crops across massive territories. Additionally, operational costs have escalated dramatically. Feed supplements, veterinary services, transport logistics, insurance, and increasingly expensive herd protection measures against predation create operational expenses that
Shepherds report working fourteen-hour days during migration seasons, managing animals in all weather conditions, and accepting irregular income dependent on market fluctuations and production uncertainties. Young Germans rarely enter the profession. Apprenticeship opportunities have diminished as experienced shepherds retire without successors. The knowledge base required for successful shepherding—understanding animal behavior patterns, recognizing diseases before they spread, navigating complex grazing lands, managing human relationships with landowners and communities, responding to unexpected challenges—typically transmits through multi-year apprenticeships that few contemporary youths undertake. The profession exists increasingly as a labor of love performed by dedicated individuals who value connection to land and animals more highly than financial security. This dedication proves admirable but unsustainable as a basis for perpetuating the profession across generations.
Systemic Threats to Transhumance Continuity
Multiple systemic pressures threaten transhumance continuation and render the profession increasingly impractical. Land-use changes represent the most fundamental challenge. Industrial agriculture has converted or severely fragmented vast territories that historically functioned as seasonal grazing lands. Cereal and maize cultivation has replaced field fallowing and pasture rotations that once provided valuable forage resources for transhumant herds. Urban expansion has consumed lands and fragmented remaining territories with infrastructure barriers including highways, railways, and industrial facilities that impede animal movement. Nature conservation policies sometimes restrict grazing in protected areas, eliminating access to historically important territories that current ecological management considers unsuitable for livestock use.
Wolf recolonization of European territories has created significant predation losses for shepherds. Wolves, absent from regions like Germany for approximately two centuries due to systematic elimination, have returned to these territories as European wildlife protection policies restrict hunting and allow species recovery. While wolves present no realistic threat to adult sheep protected by shepherd oversight, predators readily kill lambs and can decimate flocks during migration seasons when visual supervision becomes challenging over long distances. Shepherds invest substantially in herd protection measures—specialized guardian dogs requiring years of training, portable electric fencing requiring daily installation and maintenance, night-time enclosures restricting animal movement—that increase operational costs substantially and reduce the flexibility that transhumance requires. The emotional toll of experiencing regular predation losses affects many shepherds contemplating departure from the profession.
Regulatory and bureaucratic burdens have multiplied substantially. Modern animal welfare legislation, designed primarily for intensive livestock operations, creates compliance requirements that fit poorly with pastoral systems. Transport regulations limit the distances animals can travel daily and require documentation at various regulatory checkpoints. Veterinary health requirements increase costs and restrict movement flexibility. Environmental regulations prevent grazing in certain designated protected areas. The accumulated bureaucratic burden consumes shepherds' time and administrative attention while limiting the flexibility that transhumance operations require for responding to changing conditions. What once represented straightforward pastoral movement increasingly requires extensive coordination with government agencies, compliance with complex regulations, and navigation of bureaucratic procedures that assume settled rather than mobile agricultural operations.
Historical Precedent: The Medieval Decline and Early Modern Transformation
Understanding contemporary transhumance challenges benefits from historical perspective on earlier transformation periods. Medieval European agriculture operated within frameworks fundamentally different from contemporary systems, with transhumance occupying crucial economic roles in multiple regions. However, the nature and extent of transhumance underwent significant transformation during the early modern period, particularly between the 16th and 18th centuries. The introduction of new crops including potatoes and maize, the adoption of crop rotation innovations, the enclosure movement consolidating land holdings, and the emergence of industrial alternatives to wool gradually reduced the relative economic importance of transhumance systems. By the 19th century, transhumance had declined dramatically from its medieval prominence, though it persisted in regions including southern Germany where particular geographic and economic conditions continued favoring pastoral systems.
The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed severe challenges to even these remaining systems. Modernization pressures, railway development, agricultural industrialization, and two world wars disrupted transhumance operations severely. The sheep population in southern Germany collapsed from a peak of almost three million animals in the 19th century to approximately 800,000 by century's end. Nationwide, German sheep numbers declined from approximately 30 million to about 10 million over the same period. By the mid-20th century, Baden-Württemberg sheep numbers had declined to approximately 100,000—the lowest point recorded. The post-World War II period witnessed gradual recovery to approximately 320,000 sheep by the early 21st century, but the composition of sheep farming had transformed fundamentally. Contemporary flocks support different production objectives than historical systems, with particular emphasis on meat production rather than wool, which had dominated economic calculations historically.
Environmental Services Valuation and Potential Economic Alternatives
Contemporary environmental science increasingly quantifies the ecosystem services that transhumance systems provide, potentially creating basis for alternative economic arrangements supporting shepherding. Carbon sequestration benefits, biodiversity conservation, landscape maintenance preventing forest encroachment, soil restoration, and water quality preservation represent services that modern economies increasingly recognize as valuable. In principle, governments could compensate shepherds specifically for environmental benefits their grazing systems provide, making shepherding economically viable without depending entirely on product sales. However, political will to redirect agricultural subsidies toward these priorities remains limited. The Common Agricultural Policy continues prioritizing large-scale crop farming and intensive livestock operations rather than compensating for environmental services.
Growing consumer interest in sustainable and environmentally produced foods creates potential premium markets for transhumance products. Lamb and sheep meat from animals grazed through transhumance systems command higher prices in sophisticated European markets where consumers prioritize environmental impact and animal welfare considerations. Wool from transhumant systems offers distinctive qualities increasingly valued in premium textile markets. These potential revenues remain limited compared to conventional livestock operations but suggest economic possibilities. Certification programs and direct marketing to consumers increasingly aware of production systems could expand markets for transhumance products.
Government subsidies and payments for environmental services represent another theoretically promising avenue. The European Union and individual nations could establish compensation mechanisms explicitly recognizing environmental benefits that transhumant grazing provides. Carbon sequestration services, biodiversity conservation, landscape maintenance, soil restoration, and watershed protection could theoretically justify payments that make shepherding economically sustainable. Several Alpine regions have begun implementing such schemes on limited scales. However, expanding such approaches requires political commitment and budgetary resources currently directed toward supporting industrial agriculture through conventional subsidies.
Educational tourism and cultural programming offer additional economic possibilities. Nuremberg's approach demonstrates that communities can generate value from maintaining traditional practices. If more cities and regions consciously invested in preserving and promoting transhumance traditions, shepherds might earn supplementary income through educational activities, cultural performances, and tourism-related enterprises. This income diversification could make shepherding economically sustainable without requiring complete transformation of agricultural economics. Universities and educational institutions increasingly recognize pedagogical value in connecting urban populations to agricultural realities through direct experience with living pastoral traditions.
Alpine Transhumance: A Regional Comparative Perspective
Alpine transhumance in regions including Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, France, and Switzerland represents a regional comparative system worth examining alongside German Wanderschäferei. Alpine transhumance operates through different mechanisms than German lowland transhumance, involving movements between valley floors, intermediate mountain pastures, and high alpine meadows in carefully orchestrated seasonal cycles. UNESCO recognized Alpine transhumance in the Bregenz Forest as intangible cultural heritage in 2011, acknowledging the practice's cultural and ecological significance.
The Austrian-Italian sheep transhumance across the Alps represents one of Europe's most dramatic contemporary examples of long-distance pastoral movement. Nearly 1,400 sheep cross glaciers and ice at elevations exceeding 3,000 meters during journeys between Schnalstal Valley in South Tyrol and Ötztal Valley in Tyrol. These animals traverse distances up to 44 kilometers during journeys requiring two or more days of continuous movement. Such transhumance operates under carefully managed conditions, with designated crossing dates and routes established through centuries of practice and legal agreement. The Almabtrieb festivals celebrating cattle and sheep return from high pastures in September have become major cultural events attracting international visitors, demonstrating continued public fascination with pastoral traditions.
Alpine transhumance research documents similar ecological benefits and economic challenges as German systems. The practices enhance biodiversity, improve soil quality, prevent forest encroachment, and maintain distinctive cultural landscapes that attract tourism revenue. However, Alpine shepherds confront identical economic pressures, predation challenges, and bureaucratic complications as their German counterparts. The Alpine region's stronger tourism economy provides somewhat greater income diversification opportunities, allowing shepherds to supplement pastoral income through tourism-related activities. Nevertheless, Alpine transhumance also faces decline as younger generations pursue alternative careers.
The Festival Phenomenon: Madrid's Revival as Cultural Transformation
Madrid's reestablishment of its historic Trashumancia festival after a century-long abandonment demonstrates both the challenges transhumance faces and the possibilities for cultural revival through ceremonial commemoration. The original Madrid transhumance functioned for centuries as shepherds moved flocks through the city on established routes aligned with contemporary commerce and urban operations. However, 20th-century urbanization rendered this practice impossible as vehicular traffic multiplied, pedestrian congestion intensified, and property development eliminated traditional pathways. The practice disappeared entirely by the mid-20th century as cities prioritized automotive circulation and modern commerce over accommodation of pastoral movement.
In 1994, Madrid revived the tradition as an annual cultural festival. City authorities designate a ceremonial date, close specific streets, and invite shepherds to guide their flocks through the city in a formally organized event. Approximately 1,500 sheep and goats currently participate, accompanied by shepherds in traditional clothing and supported by municipal coordination. The festival celebrates heritage while acknowledging that transhumance no longer functions as an economic necessity in Madrid's context. It serves as theater representing cultural memory and contemporary appreciation for pastoral traditions. The event attracts thousands of spectators and substantial international media attention.
Educational programming explains transhumance history, contemporary shepherding challenges, and ecological benefits. Local businesses organize special celebrations. Municipal authorities host formal ceremonies incorporating medieval traditions including symbolic payments made in historic coins. The festival generates economic benefit through tourism, hospitality spending, and the cultural capital Madrid derives from maintaining distinctive traditions. However, the festival also represents fundamental transformation. Original transhumance moved animals through cities as part of economic production. Contemporary Madrid offers celebration of tradition rather than accommodation of ongoing pastoral practice. Nuremberg's continued real transhumance differs fundamentally from Madrid's revival festival, though both represent important cultural recognition.
Conclusion: Choice, Preservation, and Contested Futures
The sight of hundreds of sheep moving through Nuremberg's streets annually represents far more than curiosity or spectacle. It embodies a deliberate choice made by German society to accommodate practices that predate contemporary civilization by millennia. The shepherds conducting these migrations inherit knowledge and practices stretching back through generations, maintaining connection to lands and animals their ancestors managed centuries ago. The sheep themselves continue behaviors hardwired through thousands of years of evolution adapting them to pastoral management. The annual movement through urban centers demonstrates that tradition and modernity need not be irreconcilable opposites. Contemporary societies possess sufficient capacity to accommodate pastoral practices if they value them sufficiently. Nuremberg proves this through annual practice. Madrid demonstrates it through cultural celebration. Alpine communities sustain it through regulated passage across glaciers. These examples contradict narra
The choice to preserve transhumance depends on recognizing value beyond immediate economic return. The ecological benefits of grazing systems, the cultural continuity connecting communities to their heritage, the educational opportunities urban residents gain from witnessing agricultural reality, the distinctive character such practices provide to cities—these represent legitimate values deserving protection. Allowing transhumance to persist requires modest adjustments: designating routes, permitting seasonal street closures, facilitating passage through coordination rather than obstruction, and potentially establishing compensation for environmental services. These accommodations impose minimal burdens on societies while maintaining significant cultural and ecological benefits.
Without deliberate preservation efforts, transhumance will likely disappear from German landscapes within decades as current shepherds age and fewer younger people enter the profession. The knowledge will fade. The routes will be forgotten. Urban residents will lose their annual connection to pastoral heritage. The ecological functions provided by traditional grazing systems will cease operation as abandoned grasslands transform to forests. But the choice remains contemporary—societies can preserve these traditions if they consciously commit to doing so. Nuremberg's continued accommodation of sheep demonstrates that such choices remain possible and meaningful. Whether other communities and societies make similar commitments will determine whether transhumance persists as living practice or vanishes into historical memory, surviving only in festival celebrations and academic study.