I was talking to someone who supported live export the other day. I told her that sheep are sweet, sensitive, intelligent, fun, and playful individuals, and it’s time we stop thinking of them as inanimate objects. Even the term “livestock” reeks of disconnection.
She insisted that sheep aren’t intelligent, and as a farmer, she claimed to know best.
I explained that I also care for sheep rescued from farmers, and I had countless stories about their intelligence. Since I wasn’t a farmer viewing them as commodities, I saw them as individuals with unique personalities.
I decided not to engage with her further, but it made me reflect on all the amazing encounters I’ve had with sheep.
There was the year we had lambs after the neighbor’s ram sneaked into our main paddock. So we set up a safe paddock for the mothers and their lambs.
One night, we heard urgent bleating outside the house. It was late, and we were about to go to bed, but we always check on a bleating sheep. Outside was Marcie, and she had come to get a human to let her into the safe mum-and-lamb paddock, which was a decent walk away.
I asked her what she needed, and she led me to the paddock, asking me to open the gate. So there we were, under a starry sky in the quiet wee hours, Marcie guiding the human to where she needed to go.
Another sheep, Dot (that’s her in the background in the pic at the top with the black dot on her nose), didn’t enjoy living in the big paddock without her friend group. During shearing, she literally jumped the fence to be with her preferred sheep friends who live around the house. She still lives there to this day.
Speaking of jumping, when the cows trampled the fence between two big paddocks, it was the sheep who gleefully jumped the broken fence, while the horses, also intelligent, chose to play by the rules and stay on their side. The sheep had no such compunction.
We’ve raised many sheep in our old cottage, and Rhys, the blind sheep with a previously broken leg, is huge now but still comes in at night to feel cozy and safe. He knows how to navigate the furniture, loves the cats, and has settled into a great routine.
Then there were the two old-timer sheep, Bartlett (that’s him in the pic below) and Walter, who were always bending the rules to suit themselves. Daily, we’d find them in the hay shed, helping themselves. This was definitely off-limits to sheep people, but they never seemed to get that particular memo. Bartlett and Walter were such characters, and now that they’ve both passed, we still miss their antics.
So please, tell the government to retain the ban on live exports. Submission information is here. The deadline is Friday for submissions. Let’s keep the world a kinder place for all species. And if farmers are worried about their income, let’s help them find alternatives to cruelty, because live export is simply unacceptable.