Farmers in Jökuldalur in East Iceland fear that several hundred sheep were killed in the snowstorm that passed through the region yesterday. They are preparing to search for their sheep but have to sit out the weather.
ICE-SAR assist with the search for lost sheep after the blizzard in North Iceland in autumn 2012. Photo courtesy ICE-SAR.
Because of the bad weather forecast for the last weekend of August, farmers in the region—as in other regions in North and East Iceland—had already rounded up their sheep from mountain pastures, ruv.is reports.
However, the snow that fell on Sunday night and yesterday reached the areas in the immediate vicinity of the farms. Farmer at Hofteigur Benedikt Arnórsson commented at noon today that the weather was still crazy.
“The snow line stretches below the farms and there’s a significant amount of snow in the mountain,” he said. “The blizzard is still raging so it’s impossible at this time to check what has happened.”
Benedikt said farmers don’t know how their sheep have fared and are waiting for the storm to calm so that they can check on them.
“We have contacted search and rescue, asking them to lend us equipment and tools. But we haven’t called out any manpower yet. The weather is too bad for that,” he stated.
According to Benedikt, the weather is worst at four or five farms where there’s a total of 2,000 sheep during winter. Hundreds of sheep are missing. “Of course the sheep may have found shelter near the farms but we just can’t tell yet.”
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