450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) _ First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported Friday.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher, cushioning the fall, the daily newspaper Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted,'' Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops US$100,000 (euro84,000), a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per person is around US$2,700 (euro2,268).

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep,'' Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us.''

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