MOUNTAIN RESC-EWE TEAM SAVE STRICKEN SHEEP FROM CLIFF LEDGE
- Ewe had been stuck above a beauty spot made famous by the Harry Potter films for more than a week
- Two brave rescue team members abseiled down to free the animal
They are more used to helping stricken climbers down from perilous positions on Scotland’s mountains.
But two members of a Scots rescue team used their skills to save a stranded sheep from above beauty spot made famous by Harry Potter.
The ewe was stuck on a ledge more than 100 feet up at Steall Gorge in Glen Nevis, Lochaber.
Two members of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team abseiled down to take it to safety.
Deputy team leader John Hepburn said that while it was not an official operation it was one of their more unusual jobs.
He added: ‘It was an act of goodwill by two members. The sheep had been stuck on a rather precarious little ledge high above the river for over a week.
‘With an abseiling pincer movement from above and a bit of high school rugby skills, a tackle was administered to contain the hungry girl before she could fall off the ledge. After a bit of wrangling she was hauled up and released onto the hill for a well earned meal.
‘Dealing with animals is always tricky because you don’t know how they will react. Fortunately she did not jump or struggle and was in reasonable condition, given where she was and for how long.’
The river is close to Steall Falls, which featured in the film Harry Potter Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Lochaber MRT, which cover 4,413ft high Ben Nevis, is Scotland’s busiest mountain rescue team.
In total it answered a record 157 call outs, including to five fatalities, last year.
The 52 members are under increasing strain in an unprecedented year of call-outs as more people took to the hills.
The previous record was 132 call outs and in 2022 there were 122.
It comes after ‘Britain’s loneliest sheep’ was rescued last November - two years after it became stranded at the foot of a cliff north of Inverness.
Three-year-old Fiona was saved from a cave near Brora and now lives at Dalscone farm park, near Dumfries.
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