500 cows rustled at New Zealand farm

Cattle thefts done gradually over long time, police say

WELLINGTON // How do you steal 500 cows? Probably not all at once, according to New Zealand police.

Authorities said yesterday that they were investigating reports of the mass rustling at a South Island farm.

Residents said they had never before heard of cattle thefts on such a huge scale. And this is in a nation that is home to about 10 million cows – more than double the number of people.

Perhaps understandably, the farmer involved is feeling too sheepish to talk about what happened, according to friend Willy Leferink.

“He’s absolutely gobsmacked, and deeply embarrassed,” Mr Leferink said. “If you had three quarters of a million dollars go missing, you wouldn’t want to talk about it either.”

Mr Leferink said each milking cow was worth about NZ$1,500 (Dh3,980) and weighed more than half a tonne. He said the cows could have been taken from the herd of 1,300 near the town of Ashburton any time between early July, when they were last counted, and late August.

Police said the incident came as a reminder to farmers that they should be checking their fences and counting their stock regularly.

“It’s unlikely the theft of hundreds of animals could be completed at once, and is more likely that multiple thefts could be carried out over a period of time,” said Senior Sgt Scott Banfield.

Mr Leferink said a trailer-lorry would need to be fully loaded 13 times to move all of the missing cattle. “There have to be a number of people involved,” he said. “That’s the biggest chance we have [to get the cattle back], of somebody cracking at some stage.”

He said the thieves would face a tough time trying to sell the cows, because each one has an electronic identification tag in its ear. The tags could be removed, Mr Mr Leferink said, but an honest dealer would not buy a cow without a tag.

He said farmers could sometimes be relaxed about security. “They’re good natured and haven’t got evil thoughts in them,” he said. “This is very hard to deal with.”

Residents said they had never before heard of cattle thefts on such a huge scale