GPS tracking to deter sheep thieves

An increase in the number of sheep thefts occurring in the northwest has led farmers to move forward with an initiative to use GPS technology to track flocks in the uplands.

Over the past four weeks, meetings have been taking place on both sides of the border in the northwest to see if a significant level of interest is present among upland sheep farmers to use the technology.

Donegal vet Gerald Roarty of Letterkenny Animal Hospital is leading the initiative and says there has been widespread interest among farmers due to increasing levels of sheep thefts in hill areas.

“We have been in contact with an English company that is very close to designing a product that can be implanted subcutaneously under the skin of a sheep. The sheep will act as a sentinel animal in the flock and won’t go into the food chain, but we will be able to monitor that animal through GPS satellite,” Gerald said.

The device is around half the size of a cigarette lighter and has a battery life of 40 hours. The programme that the farmers are looking at only switches the tracker on and therefore uses the battery once the animal moves outside a set boundary. This then allows the farmer to receive a message on their phone showing the location of the sentinel sheep.

The group is now trying to secure grant funding to help reduce the cost of the technology for farmers. “We are looking at European innovation grant funding for two pilot projects to use the devices. One project will be a group of farmers in Donegal and another is in Connemara. The more devices we can order, the cheaper they will be,” Gerald said.

It is hoped that the initiative will lead to the recovery of stolen sheep and that eventually the knowledge of the presence of the technology in flocks will act as a deterrent to potential thieves. “Sheep stealing in the northwest is at epidemic levels at present. Many farmers are afraid to graze uplands and commonages due to the threat of sheep thefts,” Gerald said. As well as allowing stolen sheep to be tracked down, the technology could also be used by farmers trying to heft (retain) sheep on commonages without the need for fencing.

“There are less and less sheep on the hills as the risk of thefts increase. In areas vegetation is not in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC) for claiming payments and the risk of fires in the summer is increasing,” Gerald said.

The farmers are also looking at virtual fencing technology for cattle in the uplands to get vegetation that cannot be grazed by sheep into GAEC. This marks out boundaries in commonages and a tracker device around the neck of the animal alerts farmers when it moves outside an area or provides an electrical shock, similar to a dog training collar.

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