Where Have all the Sheep Gone?

Regular followers of my blogs will know that I have a penchant for appropriating and mutilating song titles. Here we have a reference to Pete Seeger’s 1955 song Where Have all the Flowers Gone?, covered by many artists since then, such as Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, and Peter Paul and Mary. The song has an anti-war theme, but it is only a coincidence that the sheep above look as though they are “going over the top”. Full confession – these sheep were photographed near Gumley in Leicestershire, which is about 1,929 miles (3104 Km) from Avren. A little warning – there will be more numbers and statistics to come.

This post was inspired by a Sofia News Agency article I read about the rising food prices here in Bulgaria. A large contributory factor is the decline in home-produced food, leading to increased reliance on more expensive imported goods. They noted the decline in the sheep population of Bulgaria, from a high of roughly 9 million in the 1980s to close to just a 1 million now. This happens to coincide with a continuing decline in the human population of Bulgaria.

Now, I thought these numbers were a bit woolly. My inquisitive statistical brain (can you believe I actually enjoyed statistics at uni?) led to a deeper dive into the real figures. This is what I found…

The Bulgarian sheep population peaked at 10,978,289 in 1984. It now stands (or maybe lying in a field) at 1,016,700. At this time (1984), the human population was 8,939,490.

The human population of Bulgaria peaked at 8,980,606 in 1980. It now stands at 6,511,163. At this time (1980), the sheep population was 10,535,673.

If you are as sad as me, you can do some simple divisions to find out the ratios of sheep to people and of people to sheep. At peak sheep there were more sheep than people. There came a turning point between 1988 and 1989. In 1988, everyone in Bulgaria could have a whole sheep (with a bit leftover – sheep to people ratio of 1.006). In 1989, you could only have 0.98 of a sheep each. This trend has continued, with the current ratios being 0.16 (sheep to people) and 6.4 (people to sheep).

I guess I really should get out more. Without taking the deep dive (or dip?), I would not have come across the amazing site with all the sheep data – baachart! I obtained the human population data from macrotrends.

Thank you for sticking with this. I shall now sheepishly withdraw…