Millions of dollars' worth of animals have been reported stolen from rural areas in the past 12 months.
It is an extra blow for some farmers already suffering from drought.
Sheep farmer Noel Siviour ((SIV-ee-er)) says he was rounding up his sheep earlier this year when he noticed a sizeable number missing.
"Well, we got a mob of sheep in for shearing end of January, and we found out we were between 40 and 50 down. They were pregnant ewes -- with wool, full wool. And (we) didn’t think a lot about it. We were pretty disappointed, but ... And then I topped the mob up and mated them and got them in for preg (pregnancy) testing only a couple of weeks ago, and we were down another 140 sheep."
The farmer from South Australia’s drought-affected Eyre Peninsula estimates the losses have cost him about $50,000 -- and will affect his production for years.
"I was fairly upset about it. We put a lot of work into our sheep, and, yeah, it was terrible."
More than 20,000 sheep and cattle were reported stolen to police across the country last year, costing farmers more than $5 million.
Bill Nolsworthy, a board member with Livestock SA, ((S-A)) suggests rising wool and meat prices are spurring more thefts.
Please listen to the full report in Pashto.
