Sheep. There are a lot of them about here in Shetland. Around 150,000, it's said, which makes six woolly gods per human inhabitant.
Shetland is a rocky archipelago, Atlantic on one side, North Sea on the other, with over 1600 miles of indented, gullied, sometimes dizzyingly high coastline. It's inevitable that in this crofted, bare landscape, some of it fenced, some not, sheep go o'er da banks and die lingering deaths by injury, drowning or starvation. Because sheep roam far, wide and largely unobserved.
Nobody likes this. Some lambs are worth serious money, most crofters take their animals' welfare seriously, and attempts are usually made, where possible, to rescue any stranded lamb, gimmer or ewe.
I blame Jesus, actually. Or Sunday School. I refer you to Luke Chapter 15:
"Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ (New International Version).
Sheep guilt? Baah! No wonder.
Over the last couple of weeks, there has been consternation and vexation over a sheep that has, apparently uninjured and happy with its lot, made its way to the bottom of a steep and very deep local geo, a major tourist attraction viewed by hundreds of tourists every week, if not day.
The local coastguard team, understandably, are forbidden from putting their own lives at risk to rescue the beast, which so far is grazing happily on seaweed and some grass. I have written to management asking if an abseiling practice or exercise could include retrieving said sheep (the coastguard team do practise at this particular spot) but have received no reply.
Chasing down a reluctant, fully grown sheep, roping it up and hauling it up a cliff is both difficult and potentially very dangerous. Ideally you'd want to go in by boat with three people and at least one dog, but it's a seriously hazardous approach. Even for an RNLI crew with a RIB, though I note that they do rescue stranded dogs. Just not sheep. Cats? Too clever to get themselves in such a situation.
Yes, the risk of a desperate owner clambering down to a shivering pup, and getting into serious bother, is high. So the RNLI will argue that they're saving, potentially, a human life. But one day a hapless tourist is going to crane over to look at the Lost Sheep and tumble seawards. Or an amateur abseiler is going to take pity, take a risk too many and have to be rescued.
So what to do? Before a big storm and high tide washes the animal away?
Shoot it, someone suggests. High velocity rifle, decent sights, steady aim. I know someone. Might be kindest in the long run. And safest. Or pray. Set up a Facebook Page for Sherlock the Sheep. Save the Northmavine One! Charter a helicopter! Send for Chris Packham!
The thing is, at any given moment, there are probably a dozen sheep stranded at the bottom or halfway down a Shetland cliff, far away from worried touristic eyes. No attempt will be made to rescue them. Because nobody will know.
And it'll be a bloody, nasty business for most of them. Blackback gulls and ravens pecking at the corpse. Before the weather, smaller scavengers and insect life pick the bones clean
It's the price we pay for knitwear and mutton, for the Fair Isle pattern and the lamb chop. Just don't tell the tourists. Or the Sunday School Superintendent, if such creatures still exist.