Warmer weather leads to smaller sheep
Baaad news? Global warming now shrinking sheep - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – Like the wool sweater that emerges from the dryer a size too small, global warming seems to be shrinking sheep.
On average, wild Soay sheep on Scotland's island Hirta are 5 percent smaller today than they were in 1985, according to a team of researchers led by Tim Coulson of Imperial College London.
"The decrease in body size was due to a reduction in growth rates caused, in part, by the changing climate," Coulson said in an interview via e-mail.
Evolution favors the development of large sheep, which can more easily survive harsh winters, Coulson explained. So the researchers became curious about the overall decline in size of the animals on Hirta.
