Sonny Wool is a sheep from the North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Born in Dannevirke

Dannevirke

Dannevirke , is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the major town of the administrative Tararua District, the easternmost of the districts in which the Regional Council has responsibilities...

 circa 2008, he is named after All Black Sonny Bill Williams

Sonny Bill Williams

Sonny William 'Sonny Bill' Williams is a New Zealand rugby union player and former rugby league player. He is only the second person to represent New Zealand in rugby union after first playing for the country in rugby league. In rugby union he usually plays as a centre...

. He has become famous since his feeding behaviour has been used to correctly predict the winner of each of the New Zealand national rugby union team's matches in the 2011 Rugby World Cup

2011 Rugby World Cup

The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Africa at a meeting in Dublin on 17 November 2005...

. His role at the 2011 Rugby World Cup has been compared to that of Paul the Octopus

Paul the Octopus

Paul the Octopus was a common octopus from Weymouth, England. Paul lived in a tank at a commercial attraction, the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany and became internationally famous after his feeding behaviour was used to correctly predict the winner of each of the Germany national football...

 at the 2010 FIFA World Cup

2010 FIFA World Cup

The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010...

.

Sonny Wool’s owner is Beverley Dowling. His agent is Dan Boyd who also designed the sheep’s prediction process. The prediction process was designed so that Sonny Wool was presented with two boxes containing feed in the form of hay

Hay

Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs...

, each box marked on the outside with the flag of a national rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 team in a forthcoming match. His choice of which hay to eat first was interpreted as indicating his prediction of a win for the country whose flag was on that box. Selections by the sheep have been correct in all four of New Zealand’s matches so far in the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Sonny Wool has his own website, Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 and Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 account, accessible at http://www.sonnywool.co.nz . He is under 24 hour protection as a result of receiving death threats on his accounts.

Personality

According to Dan Boyd, as a lamb, Sonny Wool predicted when it was going to rain. His manager describes him as “a bit socially inept” who prefers the company of humans and has “got a few fetishes for things - one is light at night and he really likes rugby balls”.

2011 Rugby World Cup

Teams	Stage	Date	Prediction	Result	Outcome
	Pool stage 2011 Rugby World Cup Pool A Pool A of the 2011 Rugby World Cup began on 9 September 2011 and was completed on 2 October. The pool was composed of hosts New Zealand, as well as the fourth-placed team from 2007, France, and Canada, Japan and Tonga. One of the biggest shocks in the history of the tournment came when Tonga beat...		New Zealand
	Pool stage		New Zealand
	Pool stage		New Zealand
	Pool stage		New Zealand
	Quarter-finals		Ireland
	Quarter-finals		England
	Quarter-finals		South Africa
	Quarter-finals		New Zealand
	Semifinals		New Zealand
	Final		New Zealand