Seventy Sheep Lost To Dogs

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31090, 20 June 1966, Page 1

Seventy Sheep Lost To Dogs

About 70 of a flock of 400 sheep on a farm at Tuahiwi have been killed or savaged by dogs in recent weeks. The sheep belong to Mr T. Hopkinson, who lives at Woodend.

About a week ago Mr Hopkinson found that 24 ewes and 15 hoggets had been injured, five of them so badly that they had to be destroyed.

The other animals were treated by a veterinary surgeon. Some sheep were missing and Mr Hopkinson thought they might have got into other persons’ flocks. This week-end, Mrs J. Taylor, of Southbrook, found 33 sheep in the Cam river about half a mite upstream from Mr Hopkinson’s farm. Twentyfour of them Were dead and

the other nine were barely alive. One had to be killed. The dead sheep had been either drowned or died of wounds.

The sheep had apparently been terrorised by dogs and leaped into the river in an attempt to escape. The hydatid control officer (Mr J. J. Russell) carted the carcases in a Rangiora County Council truck to Swannanoa where they were buried in the Eyre County Council’s pit. Mr Hopkinson has asked the Rangiora County Council to see that the registration of dogs is enforced in the area. Two of the dogs which had been worrying the sheep had been positively identified, Mr Hopkinson said. The owner of one dog had destroyed the animal and he believed the other dog may also have been killed. Heaviest Loser

Other farmers in the area have had sheep attacked by dogs but Mr Hopkinson has been the heaviest loser. Last year he lost 21 lambs in a week-end.

Mr Hopkinson has had offers from friends and neighbours to keep a watch at night but it was not practical to do this every night. “This has hit me very hard,” said Mr Hopkinson. “I started farming from scratch about five years ago and without any financial help. It has been a bitter blow.”