Cool.
Since this seemed to be happening to her routinely, I asked her to film it.
Stake out a lamb on a 10-foot lead, leave the ewe free, and film it. I will pay for the lamb in exchange for the video.
According to her she cannot protect her lambs from fox, and many will die from fox predation because of … reasons.
So I was offering to PAY for a lamb that was likely to be predated on by a red fox anyway.
Sheep are raised to die. Predation *does* occur.
We are only trying to determine *what* predates on sheep.
Here was a chance to prove me wrong, from what she claimed was routine predation of lambs by red fox.
And just like that… she disappeared.
This morning I googled her name, and I *think* this woman lives in Alberta, Canada.
Since sheep predation research has been done all over the world for 70 years, I did a quick search and found a 1975 analysis of sheep predation in Alberta.
Sheep are sheep, and Alberta’s predators are as they have always been.
Basic biological research tends to age well.
So what does the Alberta sheep predation paper say?
You can read it yourself here >> https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/646779/6645-6524-1-PB.pdf?
The fascinating bit is that red fox are not listed as a sheep or lamb predator AT ALL. See the screen shot of the text at top.
If I’ve got Ms. delRea’s location wrong, we can adjust the research citation. As noted, sheep predation research has been done all over the world for 70 years, and it’s a rare location that has not bern studied.
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