This makes a change from the traffic situation in the morning. How many sheep can you count?
Thousands of sheep block the road as this driver records them in his car before driving slowly through the mass of wool.
Take a look at the video here:
Meanwhile we also came across this video from New Zealand which shows sheep being herded on New Zealand’s South Island. The sheep decide to go one way then one stands out from the crowd and the flock splits.
The sheep are being moved from behind and as you will see from the video there is always one straggler.
Moving sheep in their masses without tractors and trailers, like the videos above, is traditional in many countries, including Spain.
There is an annual festival in Madrid which celebrates the traditional migration routes of bringing sheep to the winter grazing lands in south Spain. According to online dictionaries Transhumance is the seasonal migration of livestock, and the people who tend them, between one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle.
The Independent says that the reason for the shepherds moving sheep through Madrid is so that they can raise awareness for the protection of ancient grazing and migration rites that are becoming increasingly threatened by urban settlements, railways and roads and modern farming techniques.
The tradition is approximately 800 years old and according to reports farmers in Spain still have the right to use over 100,000km of routes around Spain, including through the city of Madrid, for their annual migrations.
