Wild Rabbits Hitch a Ride on Their Sheep Friends to Escape a Flood

These photos and the footage below were taken by New Zealander Ferg Horne, who was helping to rescue his neighbor's sheep from floodwaters near Dunedin. When he was approaching the sheep, he noticed some unusual dark shapes on them. The AP writes:

He was puzzled because he knew his neighbor... didn’t have any black-faced sheep. As he got closer, he thought it might be debris from the storm, which had drenched the area and forced Horne to evacuate his home.

Then he saw the bedraggled rabbits hitching a ride — two on one sheep and a third on another sheep...

Horne herded the sheep to a patch of dry ground on the farm about 50 meters (164 feet) away. The sheep didn’t like it.

“As they jumped through the water, the rabbits had a jolly good try at staying on,” Horne said.

He said the rabbits appeared to cling onto the wool with their paws. As they approached the higher ground, the rabbits fell off but managed to climb a hedge to safety.

Horne returned later that afternoon. The floodwaters were receding, the sheep were all safe and the rabbits were long gone.

Such clever buns!

Photos and video via the AP