A Scottish farmer has had close to £10,000 (€10,985) worth of sheep stolen over the past 10 months, according to Police Scotland.
A total of 134 sheep belonging to the farmer were stolen between September of last year and June of this year.
Police Scotland has issued a fresh appeal for anyone who may have witnessed these thefts or who may have some information about the robberies to come forward.
The sheep were taken from a farm near Comrie in Perthshire at Braes Of Doune, in the centre of the country.
According to a recently released statement, Police Scotland appreciates that the thefts occurred over a long period of time and that the area of farm land is extensive.
It is unlikely that anyone may have actually witnessed any of the thefts, the statement added.
However, it is possible that members of the farming and rural communities may have come across some of the animals being offered for sale.
“The sheep are blackface ewes and hoggets, all with EID identification chips in their ear tags, which are marked with the number UK0543847, and all have ear clips of a half moon shape at the front top of both ears, which is unique to their home farm,” the statement concluded.
Earlier this year, the results of a survey carried out by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) showed that – on average – farmers are willing to take a ‘financial hit’ of €1,711 rather than report an incident of theft.
Speaking following the publication of the results from the survey, the President of the ICSA, Patrick Kent, said farmers and people in rural Ireland cannot be expected to continue to withstand this level of crime.
The financial cost of agricultural crime is an unacceptable burden and one that cannot be written-off as part and parcel of life in rural Ireland.
“We now have proof that agricultural crime is hitting farmers’ pockets at a time when most are struggling to make ends meet at all,” he said.