A farmer in Kerry has called for justice following the death of two of his pregnant sheep, who were reportedly taken from his flock and butchered by a man, who the farmer claimed he had caught “red handed”, cutting his ewe’s throats.
The farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, was feeding his sheep as per usual on Sunday morning (January 5), when he first noticed signs of blood on the gate to the paddock, which is located on the county bounds in Clonkeen.
“I didn’t take enough notice of it, because there were a couple of crows up on the lines and I just thought they had killed a rat or something,” he said.
The farmer checked to make sure there were no obvious signs of ill health before making his way towards a second field where he had cattle to attend to.
After he finished this errand, he made his way back towards the sheep to change the bedding in their shed, whereupon he discovered a car parked at the entrance to the field in question.
“As I approached the gate, I saw a car pulled up near the gate and I see what appeared from a distance, to be a man and a deer. I thought it was a deer shooter because they often come here to shoot deer. It’s full of deer like.
“I stopped the jeep and as I came around the front of the jeep, I knew it wasn’t a deer. I knew it was one of my sheep – I recognised her.
“I asked the man, where did you get that sheep? To which he responded, ‘that’s my sheep and this is all my land’ and I said like ‘hell that’s your sheep!’
“Then I realised that her throat was slit and it took a lot to hold back then, I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I told him, ‘you cannot do that to any animal’.
“Do you know what he asked me to do then? To help lift her into the back of the car with him,” the farmer said.
The farmer contacted the guards in Killarney, who informed him that due to the snowfall, they would not be able to dispatch an officer to the scene of the incident.
In the meantime, the farmer claimed to have punctured the suspect’s tires after the man had reportedly made an unsuccessful attempt of escaping the scene before the authorities had arrived to investigate.
“When he discovered that I had called the guards, he went in over the fence and took off across the land on foot towards the forest. There was a foot and a half of snow inside those fields, you wouldn’t put a bad dog out there where he was going that day,” he said.
The farmer remained at the site where he eventually flagged down a passing Garda car to ask for assistance.
“I was there for a bit then and just as luck would have it I learned there was a guard from the Cork side further up the road, near the border, pulling cars that were stuck. I hadn’t known he was there until a car passing by, who had stopped because they thought I was stuck, told me.
“So, that guard did come down and he took pictures of the car, the sheep, the way she had been killed, everything. He asked me where the man had gone and I pointed in the direction of the fields. The garda told me he’d come back and I said: ‘Jesus, surely he’d never me that thick’,” he explained.
The farmer then decided to wait and see if the suspect rematerialised as the guard had predicted.
“It must have been around half five or six when I saw somebody walking over to the car. When I went up to the car, I didn’t see anybody around it but I thought I saw some movement in the back seat under a blanket. So I started thumping the glass and the man popped up.
“And I said: ‘What the hell are you doing here? So he got out and he asked me to help tow him out of the snow – you couldn’t write it. I said: ‘Get out of here with yourself and he went across the road to the mountain rescue crew who had a jeep pulling cars up the county bounds.
“He stopped them to ask them to pull him out. Of course, they didn’t know what had happened so when they arrived, I told them what he had done and well, they said ‘he can stay where he is so’. He left then, walking back up across the road again and that was the last I saw of him.
“I was there all day, I had nothing to eat, and I came home and I thought I would be able to go to sleep but I couldn’t, I was awake all night,” the farmer said.
Dead sheep
The farmer claims that the man is responsible for the deaths of two of his ewes, who he insisted, were “more like pets than anything else”.
Both were also heavily pregnant with twins at the time of their horrific demise.
According to the farmer, the remains of the second sheep, which he suspects was killed earlier that same day, were found by a neighbouring farmer later that day, with the hide and innards wrapped in cloth and “thrown into a ditch”.
“He didn’t kill them like a butcher would, her neck isn’t cut clean, it’s cut rough and he must have done it in broad daylight, as well on the side of the main road.
“Normally cars speed up and down that road, but on that day because of all the snow, nobody was doing more than 30 miles an hour and yet, nobody took any notice of it. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
The farmer, who is still reeling from the events, has been liaising with the guards ever since who have reportedly assured him that they will locate and prosecute the suspect involved.
A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána have confirmed that an investigation has been launched into the incident of “animal cruelty”.
According to the farmer, multiple sightings of the individual have been around Killarney and Tralee in the days after the incident.
“I can’t understand why he [the suspect] hasn’t been picked up already because the gaurds have everything they need to make an arrest.
“It isn’t that I met him down the road and accused him, when I approached him he had the butcher’s knife in his hand, he had a stool at the back of the car and he had my sheep dead at his feet,” he stated.
Although this is an isolated incident, the farmer fears this may be more of a wider issue than what he initially expected.
“There’s a lot of people now coming forward now with cases of missing sheep and now they’re thinking that this guy or someone else, could be responsible.
“Sheep started going missing in dribs and drabs over the last couple of months, and maybe they’re pulling two or three out of this place, two or three out of another place thinking that farmers won’t miss a couple of sheep here and there.
“Only for him being caught red handed, no one would have believed it. Even the guards told me they would not have believed it only for what I discovered,” he added.