DASHED TO DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22403, 27 April 1936, Page 10

DASHED TO DEATH

400 SHEEP PERISH TRAPPED ON A BEACH HURLED AGAINST CLIFFS DROVERS CLIMB TO SAFETY [BY TEt.ECRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] NEW PLYMOUTH, Sunday Trapped by an abnormal spring tide at Whitecliffs, 30 miles north of New Plymouth, yesterday morning, 400 sheep were drowned or otherwise killed and many more were injured. The sheep were battered against the cliffs by a huge wave driven before the north-westerly gale. The flock of 1000 sheep had been purchased by Messrs. Borthwick and Sons from Messrs. McDonald, brothers, of Piopio, and were being driven by the beach stock route to the Waitara Freezing Works. Overtaken by darkness the previous night, and in fear of the rising tide, the drovers decided to leave the sheep for safety in a gulch running down from the cliffs to the sea, for even at normal times the tide at full flood dashes against the high perpendicular cliffs. The drovers spent the night at Mr. M. Wells' homestead, and yesterday morning returned to the beach to resume the drive.

The sheep, they found, had wandered along the beach, some having crossed a huge slip which had fallen from the cliffs. The gale howled in from the sea, sending great rollers crashing up the beach. Aware that the tide, under the influence of the gale, would rise rapidly, the drovers made frantic efforts to hurry the sheep across the slip in small batches. Part of the flock was driven safely across, but the race against time was doomed to failure. With astonishing rapidity the tide flooded in, and soon hundreds of sheep, unmanageable, were being thrown against the cliff by the crashing waves. The drovers had to climb the cliff for their own safety and could only watch helplessly the tragic scene below. Bruised on the rocks, dashed against the cliff or washed out to sea by each succeeding wave, fully 400 sheep were killed and many more had their legs broken or lost patches of wool and skin. Only that part of the flock that remained on the higher land of the gulch escaped the fury of the sea.