Sheep

The Miocene epoch, 18 million years of terrestrial cooling marked by rapid diversification of plant and mammal species, gave rise to the ancestor common to today’s sheep, goats, and muskox. Taxonomically, domestic sheep are part of this caprinae or “goat-antelope” subfamily of ruminant mammals that also includes Rocky Mountain goats and Asian serows. With short horns and beards, today’s serows are believed to closely resemble that common ancestor.

While recent research suggests ancestry that includes more than one subspecies, biologists tend to cite the mouflon, still found in southern Asia, as the natural forerunner most likely to have become the domestic sheep. Relatively docile behavior around humans combined with Ice Age contractions of livable terrain may have helped. Modern observers have noted that even wild bighorn sheep quickly become accustomed to peaceable human presence.

Rock art and bones strongly support the presence of domesticated sheep in ancient Egypt (7,000 BCE) and southern France (6,000 BCE), and the tending of flocks in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East is well documented. The prominent presence of sheep and shepherds in Judaic, Islamic, and Sumerian scriptural documents suggests that their importance to those cultures was well established.

The Spanish Moors of the Middle Ages are often credited with breeding the fine, crimping fibers of Merino sheep, today’s most populous breed. Trade in Merino wool grew so lucrative that Spain’s Mesta guild of sheep traders outlawed its export for four centuries. By the 1400s, the greatest fortunes in Spain had been built on trade of Merinos and their fiber—those fortunes financed many New World voyages, including those of Christopher Columbus.

Brought by the Spanish, the Churro sheep and its glossy fleece were woven into Navajo culture for 350 years until the 1860s, when America’s westward spread forced the relocation of the tribe and its flocks. By the end of the 1930s, the Churro was believed to have been purged in advance of construction of the Hoover Dam. But discovery of remnant Churros in the early 1970s brought restoration via the Navajo Sheep Project.

Composed as commentary on King Edward I’s wool taxation policy that had taken effect 400 years prior, the earliest written version of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” dates to 1744. Nearly a century later, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was published in a poetry collection, purportedly based on the author’s experience as a school teacher; in 1877, Thomas Edison read the poem into his newly invented phonograph machine, making it the contents of history’s first audio recording.

As human populations grew and trade expanded, weavers of sheep’s wool benefited from the evolution of related technology—the spinning wheel, the flying shuttle, the weighted loom. Arriving in 1804, the Jacquard loom used sets of custom punch cards to control its automated action, allowing faster production of complex patterns. Such card systems eventually enabled 19th-century mechanical calculators and, later, IBM’s earliest computers.

During World War I, President Wilson’s administration brought a flock of sheep to graze on the lawns surrounding the White House, touting both their idyllic presence and the need to seek creative labor solutions while the nation’s workforce was at war. Seeing an opportunity for charity, the administration auctioned the flock’s fleece—two pounds in each of the 50 states–raising the equivalent of nearly $900,000 for the American Red Cross.

Between 1961 and 2018, the production of wool worldwide declined roughly 25%—most notably in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, which had been the world’s top three producing countries. In the US, wool production declined by more than 67% over that period. Consumer preference has shifted toward less expensive and lower maintenance synthetic and cotton fabrics; and farmers seek more profitable, sustainable uses for arable land.

Ostensibly seeking avenues to treat genetic diseases, scientists had been cloning animals such as the tadpole (1952) and carp (1963) for decades. But in 1996 near Edinburgh, Scotland, Dolly the Sheep was born as the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, amplifying worldwide ethical debate about genetically modified livestock, embryonic stem cell treatment, and unnecessary suffering or destruction of non-viable embryos.

The largest ocean-going livestock vessel in history, Ocean Shearer, put to sea with the capacity to carry 75,000 live sheep on voyages as long as 18,000 miles. As evidence of horrific conditions on such ships continues to emerge, some governments have increased oversight, albeit temporarily or superficially. Meanwhile, to maintain profitability the largest sheep exporters continue to expand their operations’ scale and mechanization.

Because of their relative longevity, brain size, and docility, domestic sheep have long been used and abused for scientific study. A relatively humane study at the University of Cambridge trained eight sheep via reward to distinguish the faces of celebrities from other portraits. The same individuals, shown photos of their human handlers for the first time, would “double-take,” pause, and ultimately choose their handlers’ photos over others’.

More than 2.4 million sheep were slaughtered for meat in America in 2019, producing over 153 million pounds of “lamb,” most of it from animals killed around 1 year of age. Because this is the norm in the U.S., all meat from sheep is defined as “lamb” for commercial purposes. Also in 2019, 24 million pounds of wool were shorn—an all-time low for the U.S. Cheaper fibers have become more popular, and consumers are learning about the cruelties of wool production.