Cattle thieves leaving just ropes, manure for angry owners

by Katherine Renton

Cattle thieves are preying on farmers’ animals in the Argyle/Akers area leaving only the ropes and manure behind, and last month slaughtered two cows within three weeks belonging to the same farmer.

Retired teacher Dennis Deane also suffered losses.

Cutting through one section of Akers is a narrow road, with trees and slopes on either side, and houses appearing once in a while.

This area can become lonely, and some of the street lights are not working. It seems that in recent months someone or more likely some persons have been using this remoteness to slaughter cattle and transport them away to sell to unknown
persons.

Their crimes leave the farmers dejected and struggling after raising animals for years, investing in them, and suddenly having thousands of dollars taken away from them in one fell swoop.

In the space of three weeks, retired policeman Cyril Evans, 67 years old, lost two large cattle to the bandit/bandits.

Evans leases land in the area and was raising three cattle, but has only been left with the eight-month-old alive.

In the second week of February, between two coconut trees he found what was left of his first animal.

“Somebody took it, some thieves took it, slaughter it, take way all the meat, and leave the remnants or what we would call the manure, the dung, and went away with it,” he recalled.

He estimates the animal was worth $4000 as it was large.

He reported this theft, but two to three weeks after this, the mother of the one that was stolen was slaughtered. She was apparently valued at approximately $5000.

What he had tied the animal on was cut, and a search revealed the rope tied to a coconut tree, “…I look, I see blood, fresh blood or the remnants or the belly, the dung from the belly was on the ground.”

“…It was a double whammy, it was a double blow within a short period of time and they almost leave me shaking,” he said, noting that he may sell the remaining animal because he doesn’t know if he wants to continue rearing.

“I work for so long taking care of those animals and somebody who ain’t have nothing to do with them, no input, to just come and take them up and go away and benefit from the proceeds…it’s real heart rending,” he explained.

He and other farmers in that area have a suspicion that these thieves are armed because of the brazen manner in which they operate. The farmers work on a regular schedule and therefore the suspicion is that these crimes happen in the early hours of the morning.

Evans describes being dejected and saddened.

“…If you take your earnings, whatever income you have and farm and those people come and steal it away from you, they will leave you without any means of being able to farm back…because those animals if I did sell one it coulda help me out a lot, but…the people decided otherwise,” he disclosed.

Dennis Deane, who has been farming for 45 years has a number of cattle, goats and sheep that he rears on his land. As a retired teacher he focuses on his farming and butchering now.

He has not been left untouched by the thieves, with his only bull at the time being slaughtered.

If he were a weaker man, when he discovered what had happened to his bull, he reveals, he may have had a heart attack.

His friend, another farmer, died recently from injuries as a result of his truck rolling back on him. This farmer was the victim of cattle thieves as well, with four animals he owned being slaughtered.

Deane had four cattle in November 2020, and just before Christmas they pounced.

“…They apparently slaughtered the bull on the spot there, they cut it up with the skin on it, they did not take off the skin, cut it up and remove everything. All they leave was the blood and the ropes there for them,” he described.

Both Evans and Deane say that these animals are large and should require more than one person to slaughter them. Deane says when he is slaughtering animals he employs four persons. There also has to be someone transporting them when they are finished.

Further, “They are big animals so there has to be somebody who is buying the meat, the carcass. And if we don’t have these buyers then we would not have the thieves,” Deane says.

His bull was worth, he estimates, $3000, and he had been raising it for two years.

One of his cows recently gave birth to twin bulls, but he must remain alert.

Despite the dangers, he tries to monitor his animals at night.

Evans says they are crying out for help, from the police and for the laws that are in place to be implemented. Deane joins with him and is also calling on help from the public.

Evans stated, “I am calling on the Government to put something in place so as to track down these criminals. The criminals and the receivers, because if there are no receivers there will be no crime.”

They also suggest that the police patrol at the times when the thefts may occur.

“We are suffering greatly, the farmers are suffering greatly in this country,” Deane said.

He has no plans to give up farming for the moment, but, “If it continues like this we may have to go out of farming,” he commented.

A short distance away from the site of these cattle thefts, is five acres of land leased by Valentyne Samuel who lost one of his feet in an accident when he was 12, but has been farming his whole life. Leaning on his crutch as he calmly tended to his farm in the hot sun, he says “…Me do farming just like any other person, live a normal life, but I enjoy farming.”

He used to rear cattle but had to stop because of the stealing.

His colleague farmers note that he is one of the hardest hit in terms of crop theft.

“My main crops I love to plant is watermelon, okra and cucumber,” he revealed on Wednesday, March 10, but “How watermelon and cucumber easy to harvest I don’t plant it so much again, because they too easy to harvest so I plant things like potato and peanut which is harder for thief man take.”

He no longer bothers to go to the police station, saying nothing comes of it.

Samuel’s friend and farming colleague who works the land near him, Phillip Leroy, indicated “this guy (Samuel) does get a lotta lash – sometime they come and they take a truckload of watermelon because long time we used to plant plenty watermelon.”

However, he says, if “you watch the tief you would never do nothing,” so they farm as usual.