Contact: Kathie Dibell 570-577-3260 [email protected]
LEWISBURG, Pa.-- Gary A. Sojka, microbiologist and former president of Bucknell, spent many nights sleeping in the barn this spring. His wife, Sandy, wasn't angry at him. It was lambing time for the Sojkas' rare Tunis ewes, and some of the mothers needed help during birth.
Eleven new rust-colored lambs are now gamboling around the farm, much to the delight of the Sojkas. Not only have they added to their flock of nine ewes and two rams, but the newest arrivals will help preserve an endangered breed of sheep that first came to American shores in Colonial times.
The Sojkas join George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in raising the Tunis sheep. The breed came from Tunis on the northern coast of Africa and eventually was brought to America. The original American Tunis sheep were two rams that survived the ocean voyage to the Colonies.
"The question is, to whom were they bred? But their offspring were among the first domestic ruminants developed in America," Sojka said.
The breed became practically extinct during the Civil War since most lived south of the Mason-Dixon line and were consumed by starving Confederates, Sojka said. Other breeds were brought in later, and animal husbandry became more sophisticated. Sheep, and other domestic animals, were bred for certain commercial characteristics. As scientists manipulated genetics in an attempt to perfect a breed, genetic diversity dwindled alarmingly, he said. In Western Europe, for example, 230 native breeds of cattle existed at the turn of the century; 70 of those had become extinct by 1988; 53 were endangered.
"The progenitor breeds are being left behind," Sojka said. "The livestock is becoming more and more identical, and the risk is enormous. We continue to eliminate natural environmental resistance. A single, deadly pathogen could come along and wipe out an entire breed in the absence of genetic variety. We need to have something to fall back on that is less a part of a factory. Let's have a few safeguards."
There will be no Dollys (the cloned sheep) on the Sojka farm, just lambs born the old-fashioned way, one or two at a time.
The Sojkas became interested in raising the endangered domestic sheep after he retired as Bucknell's president in 1995 to become a member of the biology faculty. They bought a farm 22 miles from campus, and Sojka was casting about for animals to raise that would not only be fun for them but have relevance to his students.
He started with five of the Tunis sheep three years ago. Sojka received his Ph.D. in genetics from Purdue University and with this background decided to try to find a genetic link among the pedigrees within the Tunis sheep. Between 1860 and 1975, the Tunis flock was decimated, he said. "We don't know what happened in between those years to all the distinctive traits. It's a very interesting genetic journey."
Although Sojka has authored or co-authored more than 40 published papers on carbon metabolism and genetic adaptations to the environment in photosynthetic bacteria, he's been a long time away from the research lab. He served 11 years as Bucknell president and 13 years as the dean of the College of Arts and and chairman of the biology department at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.
The research he wants to do with the sheep is molecular genomics, which has required a lot of reading and research since his retirement from educational administration. "I'm the oldest post-doc in academia," the 58-year-old Sojka laughed.
Undergraduate research is a top priority at Bucknell, so Sojka has enlisted the aid of students to conduct some of the research. This summer, Michael Wolujewicz, a senior biochemistry major from Clarks Summit, Pa., and Michael Hemphill, a senior pre-med student from Franklin Lakes, N.J., looked for genetic markers in individual sheep to identify ones that are identical.
"We can use biology to fill in some gaps in their archival biological history," Sojka said. "This is modern biology. We'll give it a shot. Where it goes nobody knows."
"After our initial preliminary steps have been covered, it can be possible to eventually trace the origin of the first American breed and uncover its relatedness to other breeds," Wolujewicz wrote in his research proposal. "Therefore, our results may be of particular importance to breeders and other wildlife managers."
Sheep research is a whole lot grubbier than working with a cage of white mice.
The students went to the farm to collect blood samples from the lambs which they took back to the lab to examine markers of polymorphic regions DNA that are genetically distinguishable among the sheep. By the time they got samples from the frisky lambs for their research, Hemphill and Wolujewicz were sweaty, dirty and bloody.
"This has been a great experience," said Wolujewicz who plans to be a dentist. "Even handling the sheep was good, from collecting samples on the farm to working in a molecular lab."
"It combines both worlds," said Hemphill, the future doctor. "That was the first time I used a needle. We are learning valuable research techniques, and making decisions on our own."
Sheep also must be wormed, inoculated and sheared. Their hooves must be trimmed. (Mrs. Sojka refers to the hoof-trimming as a pedicure.) The lambs must be delivered. The former college president has traded in his wing-tips and well-tailored suits for boots, jeans, T-shirts and a ball cap. He does the work, with help from Mrs. Sojka and some farmhands.
As a biologist, Sojka is enjoying handling as many of his own veterinarian chores as possible himself, but calls in a local vet when needed.
All of the sheep have names, and the Sojkas know each one and who begat whom. "Ethel had Elvira and Natalie had Naomi," Mrs. Sojka related. They name them because as she said, "It's hard to talk to Number 2743. They all do have different personalities."
In addition to working with upperclass students on research, Sojka teaches a first-year foundation seminar on domesticated animals and plants, drawing on his research and experience with endangered breeds. He also teaches introductory biology courses.
A core part of the seminar is teaching "there is a covenant between us and those animals on whom we depend," Sojka said. "We don't want to anthropomophize or sentimentalize them, like Babe the Pig. But we owe them, and the bond between us is important. We give the animals respect, kindness and protection. That's our deal with them. What we want to get across to our students is our proper place among the living creatures on this planet."
Sojka plans to build his flock to produce 90 lambs a year, but the sheep were just the first endangered domestic breed the Sojkas decided to raise on the farm. They now have 24 cuckoo Dorking chickens. ###
(Note: Color photos are available by e-mail attachment or by snail mail. The photos show Sojka trimming sheep hooves and Sojka with students in laboratory. Contact Kathie Dibell, [email protected], 570-577-3260.)
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