Story By: Victoria Lyndon, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

German officials are attempting to capture an escaped sheep after it was revealed she now has at least 20 kilos of wool after being on the run for five years and hitting the headlines after pictures of the animal were released in recent days.

Nobody knows how the sheep nicknamed Maggie escaped but she has been sighted regularly by locals, always at a distance, over the last five years.

Recently German national newspaper Bild even managed to track down and film the sheep, showing her scratching herself repeatedly against trees because of irritation from the huge amount of wool she is carrying.

The local governments vet in Arnstadt, in the German state of Thuringia, Dr Michael Gurtkler, 44, said: “We have ever invented a strategy to help the sheep and we hope that it will work.”

He said he was working together with the Regional Association of Sheep Farmers in order to put together the rescue plan.

The expert said that the excessive wool was not only uncomfortable and heavy, but could also threaten the sheep’s life. He said it would absorb water, which would make it even heavier, and there was a real risk that the animal would get caught in scrub and die.

However, the 44 lbs of smelly wool on its back will also possibly have protected it, by keeping wolves and other predators at bay, and she has become something of a popular local attraction after often being spotted by hikers in the Jonas Valley situated in the district of Ilm-Kreis.

The woolly wanderer often comes to the roadside to surprise drivers but then dashes back into the forest to keep safe.

Christin Bayer, who founded the Facebook page and named the sheep Maggie, said: “I travel to work every day on this road. I named the sheep Maggie as I found it suited her well. I presumed she is female.

“I decided to create a Facebook page for people to upload pictures of her. It did not take long until users started uploading pictures.

“I once saw her lying in the sun. She is often seen at the side of the road.”

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