Kayaker Stumbles on Stranded Sheep, 'Britain's Loneliest'

A kayaker has made what she calls a "heart-rending" discovery: a sheep she believes has been stuck at the bottom of a Scottish cliff, by itself, for quite some time. Now, Jillian Turner is pleading for help for the woolly creature. The Brora resident tells the Northern Times that she first spotted the apparently lost sheep two years ago during an excursion with her paddling club, "on a shingle beach at the bottom of some steep, rocky coastline" off of Sutherland.

"She saw us coming and was calling to us along the length of the beach following our progress until she could go no further," Turner recalls. "She finally turned back, looking defeated." Turner figured the sheep would eventually find its way back up the cliff, and so she kept going. Then, on a recent kayaking adventure along the same route, Turner was horrified to see the sheep in the same spot, this time covered by a now-overgrown coat. "Her fleece on the first occasion was a normal year's growth," Turner says. "However, on the recent trip, the fleece was huge and touching the ground at the back."

Turner notes that the sheep "called out on our approach and once again followed the group along the shore jumping from rock to rock, calling to us the whole way." She adds that it must be "torture" for the sheep to be stuck where it is, as it's a flock animal that's highly social, earning the animal the nickname of "Britain's loneliest sheep" from the BBC and Guardian. "It is heart-rending," Turner tells the Northern Times. "We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year."

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Now Turner, who says the sheep was likely part of a flock that was passing through to graze—it isn't similar to sheep owned by any local farmers—is trying to arrange for a save. She's contacted various rescue and animal services, to no avail, with an inspector from the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals telling her they already knew about the sheep and that it wasn't in harm's way. Turner is hoping someone with an inflatable watercraft can get to shore and save the animal; she says she knows a farmer who would take the sheep in. "She deserves to be rescued and given a good few years with other sheep," Turner says. (More sheep stories.)