High-tech paint laced with micro-dots trialled to help stop sheep rustling

Attacks on livestock in the UK is becoming 'more and more of a problem'
Attacks on livestock in the UK is becoming 'more and more of a problem'

A futuristic paint which is laced with thousands of micro-dots is being trialled in the fight against the growing issue of sheep rustling and livestock crime.

The high-tech product, TecTRACER, works by marking livestock with thousands of forensic coded microdots that become entangled in fleeces and coats.

These microdots help trace the animal back to their home farm, should they be stolen.

The forensic codes are virtually impossible to remove, yet are easy to recover and read by the police.

The codes are held in a secure database, which will proactively broadcast any theft of livestock to others, such as auction marts, abattoirs and the police.

Attacks on livestock in the UK is becoming 'more and more of a problem' as rural police stations face closure, according to a report.

The cost of rural crime in the UK reached £42.5m in 2015 and farming unions across the UK have asked the government to increase funding to help fight the rise in incidents.

More than 1,000 rural police stations in the UK closed between 2000 and 2012, directly impacting the level of surveillance.

It is thought that many stolen livestock are destined for the illegal meat trade.

September livestock crimes

In September alone, there has been four prominent livestock crime cases with a combined total of over 300 animals missing.

On 19 September, sheep rustlers stole 14 sheep and 22 lambs from a farm in North Yorkshire.

On 13 September, a farmer took to social media to express her horror when she found out that 178 of his pigs were stolen.

Sheep rustlers struck North Yorkshire twice in two separate incidents on the weekend of the 9 and 10 September.

On the 2 September, rustlers stole more than 100 sheep from two farms in Powys, Wales.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has previously warned that farmers should not be seen as a 'soft target' for criminals.

The NFU said that the result is an increasing fear of crime in rural areas and significantly lower satisfaction levels in the police than the national average.

The NFU, in its report, has found there is no standard protocol across police forces for combatting rural crime, with some forces not even treating rural crime as serious crime.