By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Lisa Hopper, Sequim’s animal control officer, has more than her share of crazy stories. She’s wrangled mules stampeding through the city streets, massive brahma bulls, and pigs running wild, but Sunday’s livestock breakout was a new one.
Hopper says she was at home on her day off Sunday afternoon when she started seeing postings on social media about an exotic breed of sheep with large, curly horns running around Port Angeles in the Deer Park/Cedar Park Drive area, and one report had them even grazing in the median of the Morse Creek section of Highway 101.
Given what she does for a living, Hopper knew what she had to do.
“I told my husband, ‘I’ll be back in a bit!’ And like I said, I was just at home, saw the post, so I went down looking for them. There was a couple walking and they saw them and we found them. Not friendly at all. Kind of, I followed him with my car and was able to shoo him into these peoples gated area there. And so, I drove in there, close the gate behind them, and went and knocked on these people’s door. And I said, ‘I’m really sorry, but can I borrow your yard for a little bit?’ And we got them contained in there, so they at least they weren’t running around. I called my husband Lee and said, ‘I need my truck and trailer.’
Hopper did a little quick research and agrees with us that they look like Black Welsh Mountain sheep. After getting them home Sunday with the help of some bystanders, those homeowners with the yard, and especially her son Cody, she says no one had claimed them as of Monday afternoon. But we got a call from her just before airtime saying dispatch got a call from the owners and she was expecting to hear from them soon to make arrangements for pickup.
But Hopper says that’s not the end of the story.
“Yeah, and there’s two more still on the run somewhere. They said they saw one today down off of Buchanan, so…”
If you spot a couple of black sheep “on the lam”, call the Port Angeles Police Department or the Sheriff’s non-emergency number.
(Banner photo by Lisa Hopper. Above photo copied from social media, photographer unknown)