Thieves leave helpless sheep to die in field near Charl Cilliers
The pregnant ewes were hobbled with baling twine and left lying on their sides for five days.
Every silent step echoes the agony of a ewe as she struggles along, her swollen hind legs dragging and her left front hoof barely usable.
More ewes huddle in small groups in the camp – some less injured, others more severely. Here and there, a ewe cannot stand up. Not a bleat is heard as the animals try to get away from the humans in the camp during Ridge Times’ visit on July 27.
“They are traumatised from their ordeal at the hands of stock thieves,” explains Deon Grobler, livestock foreman on Jaco Goosen’s farm, Meyersvlei, near Charl Cilliers.
These animals were among four dozen pregnant sheep that were tied up and left for five days in the veld to die.
According to Grobler, the thieves initially stole 54 ewes during the early hours of July 20. They separated them from the rest of the herd and those with alarm collars.
The thieves chased the stolen sheep at high speed for several kilometres. A neighbour alerted Grobler about cut fences and sheep being herded away early that Sunday morning.
Grobler and a colleague, Marno Griesel, tracked the stolen sheep over farmland.
The trail took them across the tarred Joubertsvei road towards Charl Cilliers, and close to a dilapidated farmhouse, where the tracks became contaminated. They called the police, and a stock theft case was opened.
Two days after the theft, the owner of the land bordering the dilapidated farmhouse informed Grobler about five stray sheep on his property.
Another two days of searching went by until the police received a tip-off about sheep in a dip in the veld, about 400m from where the trail went cold on the Sunday.
The ewes were hobbled with baling twine – a method of restricting an animal’s movement by tying a front leg to the opposite hind leg and vice versa.
“The sight was grotesque. Dead and barely alive animals were tossed on top of each other. We had to drag the live animals out from under decaying and burst-open carcasses. Their legs were bound so tightly that the blood circulation to their hooves was cut off. This haunts me. The smell still lingers in my mind.”
According to Grobler, 11 sheep died in the veld. He had to put down another four back at the camp.
“I’m doing everything in my power to save these sheep, but their suffering was great. We have to help them eat and get on their feet, but I fear the hooves on some will rot off. We will have to end their suffering before this happens,” says Grobler, tears welling up in his eyes.
He is convinced he knows the mastermind behind the thefts and believes the person dumped the sheep after being spooked when Grobler’s team got too close on July 20.
Grobler says this was the second stock theft incident on Meyersvlei in two weeks, and his employer has suffered an astronomical loss. Thieves also stole 62 hogget ewes (yearlings) on July 14. The value of one hogget is about R2 500, while a pregnant ewe fetches at least R3 000.
The spokesperson for the Charl Cilliers police, Sergeant Nompumelelo Dlamini, confirmed the theft and said no one had yet been arrested. She called on the community and farmers to work together in fighting stock theft in the precinct.
Anyone with information can contact the Charl Cilliers SAPS on 082 494 4756 or 082 772 1895.
