Livestock theft has hit a 10-year-high in Victoria, placing a mounting financial and emotional toll on farmers. | bpreiss
Value of livestock theft hits 10-year high, as farmers call for more support to tackle the problem.Police urge farmers to come forward with much livestock theft going unreported.In January, farmer Belinda Steers and her partner rounded up a flock of sheep for shearing when they discovered 84 lambs were missingwithout their mothers. The lambs were still too young to be weaned.
Steers estimated her stolen lambs would have been worth at least $11,000, but that did not include money she had already spent on feed and medicines to care for them. Thieves can take dozens of animals at a time from properties and then bypass identification systems designed to trace the transportation of farm animals.
Victorian laws require all sheep to have identification tags, which allow farmers to count and trace the locations of their sheep.But Brook said he believed thieves were carefully planning livestock theft, including trucks to transport the animals and methods for removing tags. “We know that it’s often very difficult to tell if and when livestock theft has occurred as we know animals tend to be counted periodically, and it’s physically impossible to have eyes everywhere on a large farming property,” he said.