After years of isolation: “Britain’s loneliest sheep” rescued from cliffs

Cromarty Firth
After years of isolation: “Britain’s loneliest sheep” rescued from cliffs

A sheep that has probably been lonely for years According to British media reports, the man who lived on the steep coast has been released from isolation. The BBC, among others, reported on this at the weekend. Accordingly, the animal, described as “Britain’s loneliest sheep”, got lost on a cliff along the Cromarty Firth inlet in the Scottish Highlands. A kayaker first spotted it there in 2021 and saw it there again two years later. A petition to save the animal was recently launched and received more than 55,000 signatures.

Rescuers hoisted the animal up the mountain

It has now been saved by a sheep shearer named Cammy Wilson, who presents a BBC program about farming and country life. He gathered a group of volunteers who pushed the animal up the mountain – and sometimes lifted it, he reported in a video published on Facebook. He said he wanted to show that farmers cared about the fate of their animals after there had been a lot of negative comments on social media. The reason why the animal, now named Fiona, was not rescued earlier was that there was no insurance cover in the event of an accident. He admitted that the action was not without danger. “A slip-up is the only difference between heroism and idiotism,” he said. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

The Scottish animal welfare association Scottish SPCA confirmed the rescue operation via short message service X (formerly Twitter) and said that the animal was in good condition. How Fiona got to the remote cliffs remained unclear. Apparently she wasn’t lacking in food: Fiona was overweight and had very long fur, Wilson reported. She will now have a very special home.

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DPA