Eight Hundred Sheep Stolen

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31772, 31 August 1968, Page 40

Eight Hundred Sheep Stolen

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, August 30. One of the biggest cases of modernday’ sheep rustling in New Zealand has been discovered in the northern King Country’, where more than 800 sheep have been reported missing.

They have been stolen from a large Lands and Survey block in the Huirimu district, near Ngaroma. about 30 miles south of Te Awamutu.

The sheep were valued at about S5OOO.

The theft was noticed recently when a full muster of the farm’s flock was taken. The tally was 800 down on a full tally taken in June. Detective Senior-Sergeant K. I. Chadwick, in charge of the C.LB. at Hamilton, said the police believed the sheep had been stolen between June 4 and August 8. “We believe they were shifted from the farm by

truck, although we have no evidence to prove this yet,” he said. Detective Sergeant R. F. Goff, who is in charge of the inquiry, said the sheep were all Romneys, and consisted of 340 breeding ewes, 270 hoggets, and 200 wethers. “We have made local inquiries around the block, but so far we have got very little information to go on,” he said. A number of similar thefts had been reported from the area, but all had been comparatively small. The most recent was about six months ago, when a small number of lambs was reported stolen.