Farmer uses drone to retrieve stolen livestock

Stock theft costs farmers over R1 billion every year, and another story around this depressing theme was not going to be a priority that morning, but the story is an encouraging one ...

I received a link to a News24 report, “Another stock theft on a farm close to murder scene of farm manager Brendin Horner”. Stock theft costs farmers over R1 billion every year, and one more story around this depressing theme was not going to be a priority that morning. But it turned out to be an encouraging one, and so we share it here.

The story entails the theft of livestock from the farm Concordia near Paul Roux. Farmer Arthur Macaskill received a call from a neighbour in the morning, informing him that fences had been cut on the farm. Upon inspection, it was established that three cows and five calves were missing.

The spoor was followed across two neighbouring farms, and disappeared on a third, Riga farm, near the foot of a mountain, some 6 km from the scene of the crime.

Macaskill hired a drone to see if it could pick up anything. The drone identified enclosures on top of the mountain in which livestock could be kept – and also scared the thieves who fled down the other side.

All the cattle were recovered. Macaskill was full of praise regarding the support given by the police in the whole affair. Read the full News24 story here.