Two sheep sliding off a mountain

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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Trad climber

San Francisco, Ca

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:07am PT

Dunno why anyone, especially a climber, thinks it's funny seeing an animal scared and then plunging to its death.

ß Î Ø T Ç H

Boulder climber

bouldering

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:13am PT

... plunging to its death.

It's soft spongy moss at the bottom. Those same sheep slide down there every day.

MisterE

Social climber

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:35am PT

OMG! An animal may or may not have perished?

Who holds the final answer that relieves our collective angst?

deepnet

Boulder climber

San Diego

Jul 11, 2012 - 04:55am PT

I couldn't watch. I got a few seconds into it.
Very sad.

jaaan

Trad climber

Chamonix, France

Jul 11, 2012 - 05:49am PT

Dunno why anyone, especially a climber, thinks it's funny seeing an animal scared and then plunging to its death.

Absolutely. I've seen that clip posted on UKC before now. I've also seen it happen for real in the same place - the Idwall Slabs. Anyone who thinks it's funny is one sick human being.

Tobia

Social climber

Denial

Jul 11, 2012 - 07:20am PT

↑Agreed↑

squishy

Mountain climber

Topic Author's Reply - Jul 11, 2012 - 01:28pm PT

lol, here's where I say that sh#t is hella funny...

but honestly, I am indifferent...meh

jstan

climber

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:14pm PT

This link works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5W9j3WbIOg

Entirely possible the animal survived OK. If there was lessening angle and into a meadow at the bottom. Indeed, absent that, they probably would not have ventured out as they did. Not dumb.

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:38pm PT

If you go climbing anywhere with domestic sheep, you'll often find dead ones. They're not very bright creatures. The crags of North Wales, which are well vegetated, and where hillside imperceptibly gives way to rock and then to crag, are a good example.

Luckily, border collies and other herding dogs more than make up for the dimness of their ovine charges.

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Jul 11, 2012 - 02:57pm PT

Interesting to note that the mother locked her knees and skidded out of
control, while the lamb actually actively ran down the wet slabs aiming for
islands of grass and retained control.

And truly they're not very bright. Another video shows a herd of sheep
in a panic in a European village and repeatedly running in circles around
a car that was slowly moving up the street, while the shepherd tried
desperately to get them to run off to the side instead.

nature

climber

SoSlo, CO

Jul 11, 2012 - 03:09pm PT

It could have survived. It didn't look like that bad of a landing.

Blakey

Trad climber

Newcastle UK

Jul 11, 2012 - 05:36pm PT

FWIW,

The location looks very much like the Idwal Slabs in North Wales, its well over 200' from thereabouts to the base. As to the frequency, it happens a lot, the remains hill sheep are routinely discovered in gullies and at the base of crags.

They often get crag fast, and are quite adept at going down ledges to reach lush, tasty grass. They are however, not as good at getting up, or off.

Trying to rescue them usually results in them jumping - if they have their full winter coat they can often bounce and survive. I doubt that was so in this case. The lambs will of course follow mum, they aren't that bright an animal.

I read an account of someone soloing the slabs Way BITD (easiest route about 5.3/4) smoking his pipe and followed by his Jack Russell terrier!

perswig

climber

Jul 11, 2012 - 06:07pm PT

Re: the relative intelligence of ovids...

As an undergrad in ag science, I spent summers working and living at the university's beef/sheep center (*insert joke here*), tending to the critters and their housings.
At the time we had flocks of Dorsets, Cheviots, and Suffolks (big mothers, the largest of which could butt you square in the sternum, get you on the ground, and proceed to try to stomp the sh#t out of you). We also for a short period of time had some Southdowns, we called 'em pudgies due to their low clearance and broad girth. Even compared to other sheep, these seemed particularly slow.

Anyway, they were housed at a remote farm, checked on every 3-4 days but generally self-sufficient. However, during breeding season we would start augmenting their pasture with grain, poured into long metal troughs in the paddocks. You'd dump the bags and if you were smart you got the hell out of the way of the stampede and jostling that followed.

Unfortunately, a few times that season we'd grain them late in the evening, only to come back the next day to find one or two tits-up, dead in the trough. The first time we figured they had somehow climbed in, ate too much and bloated, but after it happened again, we started watching them closer after they were fed. The little f*#ks would bull-doze each other so vigorously to get to the trough that they'd occasionally toss one of their brethern entirely into the air, only to land on its back, in the V, and thus turtled, die of suffocation. The rest seemed to pay no heed, just kept on munching.

We didn't keep Southdowns for very long.
Dale