Hawke’s Bay sheep surrounded by flood water lifted to safety

Sheep huddled at the bottom of a tree surrounded by flood waters in Poukawa in the Hastings District were saved by an unlikely source – social media.

Hastings District Council board member for the Kahuranaki Ward Marcus Buddo immediately grabbed his car keys after he saw a post about the sheep on a local Facebook page around 9.30am on Wednesday, realising the sheep were near his family’s property.

Buddo said he didn’t know what he would find when he arrived at State Highway 2, between Poukawa Rd and Te Hauke Rd around 15 minutes later.

“I drove past and looked at them and thought ‘crap they are going to have to move’.”

The sheep in Poukawa in the Hastings District were surrounded by floodwater.

He said the first challenge was to figure out who the land and sheep belonged to, as it was being leased.

A short time later he received a call from a livestock agent who said he would let the farmer know what was happening.

Not long after, shepherds from the farm arrived and they established a plan to carry the sheep away from the trees and on to dry land.

Buddo quickly changed into his shorts and walked through the “reasonably cold” waist-deep water to get to the sheep stuck against the tree trunk.

Between them, they carried 10 sheep out of the water and were able to make the others swim.

Buddo said the paddock was on a slope and being grazed and the sheep had made their way under the trees into the drier spot.

“It’s no fault of the farmer in this case, it’s not like the paddock was low-lying.”

Marcus Buddo helped to carry sheep to dry land.

He said by the time the sheep realised there was a problem “they were part way up the tree and didn’t really want to walk or swim out”.

Buddo was surprised that the follow-up Facebook post to let people know the sheep had been saved had been popular, but was happy he could lend a hand.

Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay newsrooms. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.