Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Thoughts About Sheep

Once you have spent a certain amount of time* in New Zealand, inevitably you begin thinking about sheep**. For example, you might wonder how sheep could ever have come from being some kind of wild animal to what they are now. Horses, I can see it. Even cows, if you think about buffalo and stuff. But sheep? Animals so dumb they have to outsource their thinking to dogs? You never hear about them returning to the wild, like pigs. To the best of my knowledge, feral sheep have never posed a danger to agriculture and/or traffic. But they have to have come from somewhere, right? At some point in history, our ancestors must have encountered great herds of noble Ur-sheep out on the steppes of somewhere, captured, broken and tamed them, and gradually bred them to the point where they would think "freedom" was a four-letter word, if they could spell. Or count. I know this, I just find it hard to believe sometimes.

*Three days
**No, not like that. Sicko.

2 comments:

Karen Murphy said...

Google "sheep evolution" and you'll get some fascinating results that provide not only a completely useless waste of time but also interesting information on the origins of sheep and the etymology of the word. Fun!

Unknown said...

Didn't you love seeing the lambs frolic in the fields. They maybe stupid, but oh so cute when small.