Taranaki farmer rescues 300 lambs from rising floodwaters

Neighbours pitch in to help save the lambs. Photo / Mike Tahu

Mike Tahu has had an eventful day rescuing 300 lambs from rising Taranaki floodwaters.

The Strathmore farmer spoke to The Country Early Edition's Rowena Duncum, saying there had been around 183 mls of rainfall in the last 31 hours which was "unexpected" in Taranaki and had caused surface flooding.

Tahu says he saw the trapped lambs on his neighbour's property and "sort of just used our initiative".

He spent the next two and a half hours moving the stranded lambs from his neighbour's property using a tractor and trailer. Another neighbour had 40 to 50 sheep stranded and Tahu says also he pitched in to help save those animals as well.

The daring rescue in progress. Photo / Mike Tahu

The flooding was treacherous at some points of the rescue but the tractor held says Tahu, who used the fence lines to give him an idea of how deep the water level was.

Photo / Mike Tahu

The rescue of the lambs was tricky with the flood waters rising as Tahu moved the animals, "while we were carting them out with the tractor and trailer the water levels were getting higher as we were there."

The lambs are safely delivered to dry land. Photo / Mike Tahu

Tahu says the lambs most likely would not have survived the flooding without the rescue effort.

"A lot of them would've probably drowned I'd say."

Listen to the full interview below: