SHEEP SAVED FROM CLIFF EDGE PERIL
TWO sheep were dramatically rescued from a cliff high up above the West Wales coast after being stranded there for 10 days. A farmer spotted the sheep close to the coastal path at Deadman’s Bay near Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire and then made an unsuccessful attempt to rescue them himself.
The animals ended up some distance away from each other on the cliff, and were eventually reached by a specialist rope team from the RSPCA after being stuck for 10 days. The rescue team was drawn from across Wales, Devon, Cornwall and the Midlands, and they needed to carry out two separate rescue missions to save the sheep from falling onto the rocks below or into the sea.
RSPCA animal rescue officer Andrew Harris and inspectors Gemma Cooper, Suzy Hannaby, Alan Barnes, Mark Roberts, Vicki Taylor and Nayman Dunderdale were joined by chief inspector Richard Abbott and animal rescue officer Marie Stevens for the carefullyplanned operation – with the rescue of each sheep taking around two hours.
The team members anchored their ropes to the chassis of their vans, which were parked on the headland, before climbing around 20 metres (more than 60ft) down the cliff to reach the stricken pair.
Video footage of the rescue shows one of the ewes moving perilously close to the edge of a rock ledge before she was caught by Mr Harris. She was then winched up to safety in a protective animal bag along with the other sheep, who was rescued from a long sweeping face of rock some 50 metres away.
“We assessed the situation and could clearly see these two sheep were not going to get back up the cliff on their own,” said Mr Harris.
“They were too far down the face and we would normally have launched our sea boat to reach them, but the conditions at the time meant that wasn’t possible.
“But we have a team of specially trained officers that we can draw from across England and Wales and we assembled six rope officers, a rope technician and a rope operator to undertake the rescue. That had to be done quickly because of the length of time the sheep had been stuck for, although operations like this do take several days to plan.
“We were able to catch both of the ewes and fortunately they were OK, although a bit the worse the wear as they had been down there for some time. They were checked out and returned to the farmer and she was very grateful and even kindly said she would be making a donation to the RSPCA, which was good to hear as these types of rescues are costly to undertake.”
It is not known how the ewes ended up on such dangerous terrain, but the RSPCA said it was not unusual for sheep to graze on cliff tops. However, sometimes they can be chased by animals and the charity reminded dog owners of the need to consider livestock, to keep their pets on leads and to check for farm animals in fields.
The rescue operation took place on February 16.
“We do have about five or six of these types of rescues every year in this coastal region and they are technically difficult and very physically demanding,” added Mr Harris.
“All our specialist officers receive training in rope techniques to Rescue 3 standards every year to make sure everything goes to plan.”