Horrible to find your animals torn apart

Sigríður Jónsdóttir, daughter of the farmers in the farm Efra-Apavatn in Bláskógarbyggð, says that the last week has been awful and a lot of tears have been shed.

Fifteen sheep have been found dead at the farm and nearby in the past few days with obvious injuries after being bitten. In addition, a number of sheep have been found badly wounded and it has not yet been possible to trace dozens of others who may have been harmed.

Horrible to see this

“It’s just terrible, and there have been a lot of tears shed in the last few days, both of anger and sorrow. Finding your animals torn apart is just a horrible thing to see,” Jónsdóttir says. “But beyond that, there’s also financial damage, because of course this is a farming business and there’s no way for us to estimate how much damage has been done.”

According to Jónsdóttir, the animal bites can be traced back to dogs that are in the next farm, but last week she came across three dogs that had cut one sheep off and attacked her.

“We first notice the dogs on the field a week ago. Then I was coming from Selfoss and I felt there was a weird atmosphere on the farm. There few sheep out and I thought it was somewhat weird so I decided to drive up there afterwards. I immediately find a lamb near the sheephouse that was very badly bitten and it had simply been eaten alive. It was, however, still alive when I found out,” Jónsdóttir says, and adds that after finding the lamb she went into the sheepbarn.

“There were a few animals in the sheepbarn, some were limping, but nothing seemed to me to be serious. Then I hear a dog barking in another part of the field, so I go straight there with a friend who was with me, who happens to be a veterinarian. Then we saw three dogs attacking one sheep.”

Fifteen sheep killed

After Jónsdóttir and her friend reached the three dogs, she managed to catch them, but the disaster was not over yet.

“When we take a closer look, it turns out that there are sheep all over the farm and around the ground. There’s a lot of injured sheep, and then we can immediately find five animals that were killed and one that was dying,” she says, but in total, fifteen sheep have been found dead by animal bite in the past week.

Afterwards, Jónsdóttir contacted the police, the veterinarian and the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority, which are now handling the matter, but she says she is upset about the authorities’ response time because the dogs were allowed to walk free this week in spite of the seriousness of the matter.

Afraid to let the sheep out

“It’s taken a ridiculously long time. Of course, it’s going to take a lot of work to do this, but I’m overwhelmed and I think there’s a huge problem that the dogs have not been removed from the home yet and put in some kind of custody while they’re doing their paperwork,” she says.

“I just keep my sheep locked up while I look for the ones that are missing. I don’t even dare let them out because I can’t trust that they’ll come back.”

Jónsdóttir says the responsibility lies first and foremost with the owners of the dogs.

“There is no one else to blame but the owner of the dog and this problem cannot be turned over to another party. This must be stopped.”

Kristó­fer Tóma­s­son, the director of the management and utility department of Bláskógabyggð, now, informs mbl.is after the interview with Jónsdóttir, that the dogs have now been removed.

Solidarity when something happens

The search for the remaining sheep is still ongoing and Sigríður says she is moved by the help and support her family has found in the past days.

When the news got out that attacking animals were running loose Jónsdóttir asked for help in the community to find the remaining sheep missing and the response was overwhelming.

“Both people we know and people we don’t know have lent a hand, they got a day off, showed up with four-wheelers, horses and drones, drove around and were walking. These people deserve all the credit because we could never have done this alone. And in the end, when we got home late at night, there was nothing to do but cry and be grateful for these good people,” says Jónsdóttir. The search for the other sheep will continue in the next days.

“This is not over, we’re still going to look for more and I’m going to ask for more help. We don’t all need to agree, we don’t all need to be friends, but when something happens, there’s a real solidarity in the community.”