The sheep that eat seaweed

This winter, take inspiration from the adaptability of a flock of feral sheep who live on a faraway island and eat only seaweed. North Ronaldsay sheep live on the northernmost island of Orkney, and since 1832 they’ve been locked out of the pastures they formerly grazed. That year, a wall 12 miles long and 6ft high was built round the entire island, to protect the fields and crofts within – and the sheep were left on the wrong side of it. Ever since, they’ve roamed the rocky shoreline and lived on seaweed (one of only two animals to do so, the other being the marine iguana of the Galapagos). Their digestion has adapted so far in fact that to live exclusively on grass now would kill them. Small, hardy and, thanks to their change in circumstances, highly salt-tolerant, North Ronaldsay’s sheep are fattest in winter when storms deposit bumper harvests of seaweed on the beach. They’ve otherwise changed little in 10,000 years – in spite of everything wind, weather and insurmountable walls can throw at them. They may even point to a more sustainable way of feeding animals in future, as it’s been discovered seaweed in the diet leads to a dramatic fall in their methane emissions.

Spot them on a 12-mile walk by the wall around North Ronaldsay, or adopt one and dream of seaweed-eating sheep: woollygreenjumper.com