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Missoula officials will begin unleashing their arsenal of weapons in the war against weeds on the city's open space lands this week.

Weed-eating sheep were scheduled to arrive at Mount Jumbo's Lincoln Hills trailhead on Monday and will remain in the area for 10 to 14 days, according to the Missoula Parks and Recreation Department.

Park users will need to leash their dogs during this time, officials said, or hike on a different part of the mountain with their pets.

Once they're done munching on Mount Jumbo's leafy spurge and knapweed, the area's two most prevalent noxious weeds, the sheep will be moved to the North Hills, where they will remain for about a month.

The sheep will be tended by shepherds and watered regularly.

The city open space lands' shepherd squad will be an international crew this year, with the addition of Spela Marincic from Slovenia, and Yoshimi Shimuzu from Japan. Marincic is a graduate student in animal sciences at the University of Ljublijana. Shimuzu is a University of Montana student in environmental studies.

The other two shepherds this year are Molly Brooks, a UM graduate and alumnus of the PEAS project with Garden City Harvest, and Courteney Hall, a UM student in biology.

Besides putting nature's weed eaters to work, officials announced they also will begin spraying herbicides this week. The spraying activity will continue into mid-July.

It is important that people using Mount Sentinel, Mount Jumbo and the North Hills pay attention to informational signs at trailheads to know when herbicide treatments will take place, according to city officials. The signs will indicate the time frame in which applications will take place. The exact dates of applications will be posted as they are completed.

Missoula Parks and Recreation Department will use Tordon-22k for control of leafy spurge, toadflax and spotted knapweed. The department does not spray on weekends, officials said.

For more information about Missoula's open space lands herbicide treatments, call Marilyn Marler, the noxious-weed coordinator for Missoula and UM, at 243-6642.

Missoula residents are welcome to help out in hands-on, nonchemical weed control through the Missoula Wildlands Stewardship Program. The program is a partnership of Missoula Parks and Recreation, the Montana Natural History Center, UM and the Missoula County Weed District. It gives people an opportunity to help with weed pulls, native plant rescues, trail stewardship and seed collecting. The schedule of events is available online at www.umt.edu/sentinel/wildlandstewardship.htm, or call the Natural History Center at 327-0405 or Parks and Rec at 721-PARK.

Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at dgadbow@missoulian.com

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