I will give you the stats for Scotland.
6.61 million sheep. Somewhat less than I was expecting- but still outnumbering the people population of 5.45 million.
Wow. You'd have thought there would be more around Greece since Greek yog & feta is made of goats and sheep milk. Which also makes me think that there is a surreal under-use of the resources made by live sheep in the one place that is and has been historically overloaded with sheep!
I remember mild mannered US ambassador to the UK, Robert Tuttle, in a BBC interview when he was finishing his tour of duty apologetically mentioning how heartily sick he was of being given lamb to eat at every official function he attended here. A thing he would not miss.
Not entirely correct. As anyone who drives in Wales knows, sheep congregate on roads and not the wider countryside. As such, the heatmap should follow Wales main roads.
I had to seek a second opinion- you are right. 10 million. The population of Wales is only 3.14 million. That is astonishing. Wales is also very small. That must be the highest sheep density in the world.
Romania not on your map but it does have a decent amount of sheep farming (in the top 5 in Europe) - but I can vouch it's bloody hard to buy the meat. Most of our sheep are not killed for meat here, but rather sold as live exports to Turkey & the Middle East.
Lots of those hotspots are also home to lots of ancient breeds that we need to conserve and which we need to protect. Think Llanwenog or Welsh Mountain in Wales, Herdwick in Cumbria or Exmoor Horn. Sheep are not all for meat. Sardinia is home to the Sarda dairy sheep and also Friesland.
Breeds that have been shaped through selection over centuries to perfectly suit their locale are a wonderful thing & we loose so much concentrating on yield at all costs. For instance, Ronaldseys can succumb to copper toxicity while Cheviots on the same pasture might be copper deficient 🙈
Couldn’t agree more. North Ronaldsays should be eating Orkney seaweed, not grass. Not much of that in the Cheviot Hills. Pleased to meet another fan of sheep biodiversity
There are also wool breeds, especially lovely long wools. If we reduced the commercial breeds and returned to using old native breeds it would benefit the environment.
When I lived in the hills of west Wales my neighbouring farmer kept more than 1,000 sheep... they drove me baaaaarking (oops, didn't mean a doggy sound) mad!
It would be interesting to see this overlaid on a map of forest cover. I come from Ireland - all of our hills are barren because the sheep prevent anything vegetation from growing (Wales is the same). Before sheep were introduced here they were covered in forest.
Here’s a map of ecological integrity. UK and Ireland the worst and the sheep probably explain that a lot (outside of densely populated/industrialised regions )
Most British people don’t know what nature is. They haven’t seen real wild places and think some a clipped municipal lawn or a farmer’s field with some cows on it is actual nature because it’s coloured green
I only found out fairly recently that the landscape I know is completely unnatural and highly degraded. Ireland is in some ways a biological desert, yet we are told that the grass that covers 50% of this country is a natural healthy ecosystem - by people who make money from it of course!
Indeed. Ecologically speaking, all that lush green from dairy farms and our parks are green deserts with little biodiversity. Similarly, our mountain regions are deserts overgrazed by sheep and naturally should be temperate rainforests
We’ve come to believe that Ireland’s mountain regions are above the treeline. In fact, at Ireland’s latitude and with it’s temperate maritime climate , the tree line should be higher than the tallest mountain on the island
As a Kiwi owner of sheep I don't recall anyone calling them that. What we do, however, call "lice" are camper vans, much favoured by the older Brit tourist, all over our roads, which we call "road lice".
So the correct post should read 'I was told by a Kiwi on North Island the above but I did not seek verification from the wider population or any linguistic authorities contemporaneously. I accepted this observation in good faith which I now accept was an error and the bastard was pulling my leg'.
National parks here are as much about amenity value as they are about outstanding natural beauty etc. - unfair to blame sheep for this, grouse & game perhaps, also a lot of our NPs were until fairly recently heavily industrialised (cornish tin, welsh slate, derbyshire coal…)
That’s perhaps a map of sheep farm density. Lots of sheep in the Alps, but they are free-roaming herds and are transported to other places (e.g Provence) in the winter half of the year.
Same here, but I remember how awful it was when there was foot and mouth disease and the fields were empty. I know parts of the UK are over-grazed, but it's lovely to see the lambs in spring.
Comments
6.61 million sheep. Somewhat less than I was expecting- but still outnumbering the people population of 5.45 million.
(Image source:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/absolute-unit#fnr7 )
Homer Simpson voice: ‘Eat it. EAT IT!’
Here in Ireland, cattle outnumber humans (over 7 million) - hard to wrap your head around!
https://businesswales.gov.wales/farmingconnect/livestock/sheep#:~:text=At%20more%20than%2010%20million,total%20sheep%20numbers%20in%20Britain.
can’t say i’m surprised, all the ones i’ve met are dumb as
In return we get Shaorma, so, fair.
Many of my afro Caribbean community know nothing of the UK countryside.
I don't think I've ever heard that expression.
I have however heard the deadpan delivery of farmers. Is one of your legs longer than the other? Because I think he was pulling your leg.
https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests
Annoying because they’re by far the tastiest creatures.
Always great to meet on the road at night when you want to get hom.
Mainly that sheep r not all the same.