64-year-old farmer makes a video of the free ride

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

Ferg Horne, 64, says he’s been farming since he left school at age 15 and has never seen anything quite like it.

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. In fact, he inadvertently shot a short video.

“It’s a Samsung or a smartphone or whatever you call it. I swear at it every day,” he said. “I’m absolutely useless with technology.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Horne managed to capture the moment. He said the sheep were huddled together on a high spot on the farm, standing in about eight centimetres of water. Rabbits are considered a pest to farmers in New Zealand, and Mr. Horne said that typically when he sees one, he shoots the rabbit.

“But they’d showed so much initiative, I thought they deserved to live, those rabbits,” he said.