Wild New Zealand rabbits surf on sheep to escape floodwaters

It was a woolly ride, but three wild rabbits managed to escape rising floodwaters in New Zealand by clambering aboard sheep and surfing to safety on their backs.

Ferg Horne, a farmer from Mosgiel, New Zealand, captured an image of the sight after going to rescue a neighbour's sheep from the floodwaters.

While Mr Horne, 64, has been farming since age 15, he says he has never seen anything quite like it.

Mr Horne was rescuing a neighbour's 40 sheep from the floodwaters on Saturday at their South Island farm near Dunedin when he spotted some dark shapes from a distance.

He was puzzled because he knew his neighbor didn't have any black-faced sheep.

As he got closer, he thought it might be debris from the storm, which had drenched the area and forced Mr Horne to evacuate his home.

Then he saw the bedraggled rabbits hitching a ride - two on one sheep and a third on another sheep.

'I couldn't believe it for a start,' he said.

Nobody else would believe him either without proof, he thought, so he got out his phone to take a photo, an image he figured his grandchildren would enjoy.

The sheep were huddled together on a high spot on the farm, standing in about eight centimeters (three inches) of water

Mr Horne herded the sheep to a patch of dry ground on the farm about 50 meters (164 feet) away.

'As they jumped through the water, the rabbits had a jolly good try at staying on,' Mr Horne said.

He said the rabbits appeared to cling onto the wool with their paws.