Britain Passes Peak Sheep, Enters Uncharted Wool Territory
As sheep numbers and lamb consumption fall, the nation’s remaining flock has formed a committee to discuss what happens next.
BRITAIN, Sheep are leaving the hills and the dinner table, according to recent figures showing sharp falls in both the national flock and domestic appetite for lamb and mutton. Costs have risen, diets have changed, and overseas competition has done what overseas competition does. Economists say Britain has passed peak sheep.
The sheep still present have formed the National Association of Sheep Who Are Still Here, a legally questionable body operating from a damp tool shed somewhere north of nowhere. Its chair, Mavis Woolworth, said there was no panic. She had, however, spent Tuesday afternoon counting the same hill three times.
“We have moved from a countryside full of sheep to a countryside containing sheep in selected locations,” Woolworth said. “This is not a crisis. It is a strategic reduction in fluff.”
“This is not a crisis. It is a strategic reduction in fluff.”
The association wants official documents to call sheep “limited-edition livestock”. It also wants a national archive, where future generations can look at a photograph of a sheep beside a stone wall and ask whether that level of abundance ever happened.
The paperwork has not helped. Colin Ledger, spokesman for the newly sentient Office of Rural Quantities, said staff tried to identify the exact point at which Britain reached peak sheep. Then they found a form requiring the sheep to sign in triplicate. The form developed a mild sense of shame and asked for annual leave.
Several hills have since applied for cultural heritage status, having learned they may soon be remembered chiefly for formerly containing animals. Plot 7B, which submitted a statement through a nearby gate, said it was “tired of being described as scenic when what people mean is sheep-adjacent.”
Restaurants are dealing with the shortage too. Menus have reportedly become difficult to finish after the words “lamb” and “mutton” began drifting off the page. A man standing near a menu said he watched a shepherd’s pie rename itself a shepherd’s suggestion. The sheep’s committee has promised further talks, provided nobody uses the phrase “last one left” in its presence.