STOLEN SHEEP
POVERTY BAY' LOSSES.
(Press Association.)
GISBORNE, August 11.
“There is no use in closing your eyes to the fact that considerable sheep stealing is going on in this district,” said the President of the Poverty Bay Executive of the Farmers’ Union, Mr F. S. Bowen, this afternoon, in the course of a discussion of the prevalence of the offence in Poverty Bay and the East Coast district. On the other hand, it was suggested that many of the losses . are the result of carelessness.
The discussion arose through the receipt of the following letter from a station holder at Tepora, Tokomaru Bay: “I had a large mob of sheep stolen last autumn, and I did not discover my loss for about a week. The police endeavoured to trace them, and they told me that they had many cases in the district. At their suggestion, I write to ask if the Union can move in the direction of having it made compulsory for mobs travelling further than, say, 10 miles, to be paint-brand-ed. and some law passed as to a signed declaration of ownership and destination, to be carried by the drover. I leave the details to more experienced men, but the police say that legislation on these lines would be of great assistance to them.”
The President, after referring to the fact that considerable sheep stealing was going on, gave an instance of’ losses, stating that one farmer had lost 400 two-tooth ewes last year. He quoted another case where, he alleged, a drover arrived at his destination with 200 sheep more than when he started. Mr J. C. Graham said that on one occasion he noticed a district farmer’s sheep in a draft for Waikato, and the men, when spoken to, said that they would yard them out that night. Next day, the speaker saw the owner, who said that he had not received the sheep, and following up the mob, he secured 67 two-tooth wethers valued at 30/- each. Mr J. C. Field suggested that the Farmers’ Union should create a fund to pay rewards for convictions in the cases of sheep stealing. The reward could be fixed at £lOO. The President said he did not want the impression to get out that all of the drovers were dishonest, for many of them were strictly honest. @ Several members suggested that the losses were due to carelessness on the part of stock owners. One member caused laughter by stating that he had driven sheep along the roads and he had brought home more than he started with. After further discussion, a committee was appointed to collaborate with the police and communicate with the Dominion Executive on the subject.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GEST19280813.2.56
Bibliographic details
Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1928, Page 8
Word Count
451STOLEN SHEEP Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1928, Page 8
Using This Item
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Greymouth Evening Star. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.