{"id":105058,"date":"2026-07-18T15:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/105058\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T15:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:28:11","slug":"lightning-strike-kills-97-blacknose-sheep-in-swiss-alps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/105058\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning strike kills 97 Blacknose sheep in Swiss Alps"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lightning strike in the Alps has killed 97 Blacknose sheep in the Swiss region of Valais, with around 80 animals surviving, the Keystone-SDA news agency reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The animals had been standing close together in a fenced area, which has historically been unusual but is now necessary to protect the flock, the affected sheep farmer told Keystone-SDA. Sheep farmers frequently complain about the expansion of the wolf population, which threatens their flocks and forces them to take protective measures that were previously unnecessary.<\/p>\n

The devastating lightning strike was first reported by the online news site Pomona. The carcasses were retrieved from the mountain by helicopter, the farmer said.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred overnight on an Alpine meadow at the 2,503-metre Eggerhorn in the Binn valley, south of the Rhone. It came after heavy thunderstorms swept across large parts of Switzerland following an extended heatwave.<\/p>\n

The SRF Meteo weather service had already recorded 26,000 lightning strikes within the space of a few hours by Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

Blacknose sheep are a Swiss breed typical of Valais, recognizable by their spiral horns, fluffy white fleece and black markings around the eyes, muzzle and nose, among other areas.<\/p>\n

They are valued for their wool and meat, and play an important role in landscape management by grazing and keeping steep mountain meadows short.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE PHOTO – A strike of lightning appears over the Munich skyline in the German state of Bavaria. (is associated with: \u00abLightning strike kills 97 Blacknose sheep in Swiss Alps\u00bb) Peter Kneffel\/dpa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lightning strike in the Alps has killed 97 Blacknose sheep in the Swiss region of Valais, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,51554,51555,48537,51557,51556,6943],"class_list":["post-105058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-blacknose-sheep","tag-keystone-sda","tag-lightning-strike","tag-lightning-strikes","tag-royal-highland-show","tag-swiss-alps"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116941691852866600","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}