Lake District Wildlife Park has welcomed an unexpected arrival – and it was no ordinary birth.
A Cameroon lamb was born to one of the ewes at the park, at Bassenthwaite, despite there being no Cameroon tups living there.
This prompted staff to undertake some detective work.
The gestation period of a sheep is around five months. But during this time, all of the only two Cameroon ewes had been in the park with the other female sheep and no tups were in sight.
Calendars were looked at, dates were checked, and the investigation begun on how the little lamb could have possibly been conceived. After much pondering and many conversations with park manager Richard Robinson later, they concluded a Soay sheep must be the daddy.
When the Cameroon sheep were in one of the estate fields before moving down to the park, they must have had a visitor.
The Soay sheep were in a neighbouring field and somehow the Saoy tup must have decided to go on a little adventure.
A park spokesman said: “This would have involved breaking through the fence, mating with the female Cameroon and then going back to his flock. All of this was done very stealthily, and he covered his tracks well!
“The sheep are checked daily by the staff and there were no signs at all that he had been on a visit but either way, we are excited to welcome the newest lamb to our wildlife family!”
