Milder winters are helping the island's smaller sheep to survive in a development that has confounded experts.
03 July
Climate change is causing a breed of sheep in St Kilda to shrink, according to scientists.
Milder winters are helping the island's smaller sheep to survive in a development that has confounded experts.
For nearly a quarter of a century the wild Soay sheep on the windswept island of Hiort in the St Kilda archipelago have been getting smaller.
Evolutionary theory, however, should mean they get bigger.
It was a conundrum that had mystified the scientists who began studying the flock back in the mid 1980s.
However they have reached an explanation: climate change is to blame.
A succession of milder winters and earlier springs have allowed smaller lambs to survive the harsh winters, with the result that the average body size of the typical Soay ewe has shrunk by about five per cent over the past 24 years.
The sheep have been allowed to roam freely since the island was evacuated in the 1930s.
The findings could have wider implications for evolutionary trends in other parts of the world.
This is not strictly a comment on your main topic, but I wonder if readers not from Australia know that there is a beachside suburb of Melbourne called St Kilda? It got its name from a ship that was wrecked on the beach there and which was obviously named after the Scottish island.
I know St Kilda in Melbourne very well. It also was the " Red Light District" for many years. There was also an Aussie Rules football team that played in the wee stadium there. The Team was South Melbourne which moved to Sydney and became the present day Sydney Swans.
You story about the sheep on the island of St Kilda was fascinating.I wonder if the same criteria happened to the peopke that lived there?
