Social media is engulfed with conspiracy theories after this video from China showed a clip from a farm where a flock of sheep went round and round in a circle for 12 straight days. As the video went viral many people come up with plausible answers to solve the mystery but the experts from agriculture university might have a reasonable answer for this mystery.
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A UK agriculture professor has talked about the mysterious case f circling sheep which saw a flock of those sheep going around in circles for 12 whole days.
The video got viral on social media after it was shared by the Chinese state-affiliated media outlet People's Daily China.
Twitter
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"The great sheep mystery! Hundreds of sheep walk in a circle for over 10 days in [Northern] China's Inner Mongolia. The sheep are healthy and the reason for the weird behavior is still a mystery," the tweet said.
The video showed a bunch of sheep wandering around the farm in circles and even though the tweet assured that the animals were perfectly healthy, netizens shared their concerns over their health.
Alamy
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Metro reported that the woman who owned the farm said the circling began with just a few of the herd on November 4, before the rest gradually joined in. Of the 34 sheep pens on the farm, it was just the sheep in pen number 13 that was acting strangely.
However, an expert from Gloucester, England, has revealed that there could be a rather normal reason for the sheep's behavior.
Talking to Newsweek, Matt Bell, a professor from the Department of Agriculture at Hartpury University, said: "It looks like the sheep are in the pen for long periods, and this might lead to stereotypic behavior, with the repeated circling due to frustration about being in the pen and limited."
"Then the other sheep join, as they are flock animals, and bond or join their friends," he added.
Twitter
The Merck Veterinary Manual published an article on the social behavior of sheep, explaining: "Sheep are a prey species, and their only defense is to flee. Sheep display an intensely gregarious social instinct that allows them to bond closely to other sheep and preferentially to related flock members. Flock mentality movements protect individuals from predators."
"Flock dynamics are apparent in groups of four or more as evidenced by willingness to follow a leader or flee in unison," it added.
Several Twitter users commented links underneath the video to a page detailing the animal disease Listeriosis. According to the page Agriculture Victoria, Listeria bacterium can be found in food, soil, water, manure, and feed, and commonly occurs in wet and muddy conditions. It can cause sheep to exhibit circling behavior.
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But this bacterium causes death in sheep roughly after 48 hours so there is a chance that the sheep in the video are not affected by this disease.
Watching the video one can be easily weirded out. What do you think is the real reason behind this mystery case?