Why Do We Love Some
Meet Kath and Kim, two gentle young ewes who instantly stole our hearts.
Although their tragic plight was to cause them to ache, whilst the smell that emanated from their diseased feet caused our eyes to water and stomachs to heave. Barely had the door of the Kindness vehicle been swung open than the smell hit us. Then the sight of their emaciated and recently-given-birth bodies did.
As we pieced together their lives in the 24 hours prior to arrival at sanctuary, it would have to have been every mother’s worst nightmare manyfold that had played out. Not only birthing at this the most inhospitable time of the year in the southern hemisphere but their dire condition was made worse because of the painful infection that ran rampant between their toes.
So painful had this condition become that the hapless animals couldn’t stand to feed their newborns, despite every motherly instinct within them urging them to do so. Lying prone on the cold ground, no mercy was given as the icy wind began to suck the life out of them, as did the internal parasites that had invaded them.
But it was not this that would have pained them the most, but the sight and sound of their wee babies crying out for love and nourishment that surely would.
And now, with strict biosecurity in place, the girls are on the road to recovery as their resilience and sweet natures begin to shine through. But this will not be an easy haul, for they are Merino sheep. Their very breeding sees them prized for their fine wool fleece; alas, this comes at an enormous cost to these animals in terms of their robustness.
All of which leaves us wondering just why it is in our society that we love some animals for who they are, yet others for what they can produce. Something which surely says more about our species than it does the animals themselves.