Domestic Sheep Lived Happily with Kangaroo Herd for 5 Years, Rescued from its Massive Fur
Guests of the Sugarloaf Reservoir nature area in Australia are advised to keep a safe distance from the numerous kangaroos who call the region home.
But for at least the past year, people visiting the spot began to notice that one particular individual had failed to heed that advice.
Last year, while on a visit to the reservoir, Vincent Chow noticed a group of kangaroos in the distance — but there was something off about their little assembly. Inexplicably, the kangaroos were joined by a single sheep, seeming to have found kinship with his hopping counterparts.
“[He was] looking shaggy and running with some ‘roos,” Chow wrote. Over the months that followed, several other visitors had similar encounters, including this one in which the sheep is seen running along with his adoptive family:
It’s unclear exactly how the sheep came to join the kangaroos, but seemingly having become lost from his herd, he’d evidently found and been accepted into another, albeit different, species group.
Life in the wild, however, is something a domestic sheep isn’t cut out for. Without regular shearing, their wooly coats can become so long and thick that it can be life-threatening — and from the looks of it, this sheep hadn’t been sheared in years.
Thankfully, people stepped in to save him. “What do you call a sheep who lives with a mob of kangaroos? No, not a wooly jumper.
His name is Sugar!” volunteers from Forever Friends Animal Rescue wrote. “Sugar is believed to have wandered away from his home at least 5 years ago, choosing to live off the land with some local kangaroos …”
Now in good hands, Sugar finally got what he’d been so long without — a haircut. Amazingly, despite having lived so long in the wild, Sugar was found to be in good health beneath his overgrown coat.“It seems his kangaroo friends took good care of him,” Sugar’s rescuers wrote.
While Sugar is no longer cavorting with his kangaroo companions, he’ll hardly be alone going forward. According to Forever Friends Animal Rescue, he’ll be living out his days in peace on their sanctuary, joined by other rescued farm animals.
