Aussie and Kiwi Scientists Use Tech to Fight Livestock Rustling

Cattle rustling—stealing cows—doesn't just happen in old Hollywood westerns. It’s a huge and very expensive international problem that has actually been on the rise over the past decade. Now, a team of Australian and New Zealand scientists are hoping to put a dent in these crimes with a new theft-prevention system that uses GPS technology to keep track of livestock.

The researchers from Australia’s Central Queensland University, led by Associate Professor Mark Trotter with the help of Stuart Charters from Lincoln University, in New Zealand, have designed an animal sensing platform with GPS location that can detect any unusual livestock behavior patterns or movements and send the information to a smartphone to clue in ranchers and law enforcement officers that a theft is taking place. Trotter told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the technology is “a little bit like a Fitbit that you see people wearing.”

The current version of the technology uses sensors attached to the animals’ collars, but the team soon plans to test out ear tags outfitted with sensors on sheep, according to the website NZFarmer. The team is collaborating with AGForce Queensland, a farming association, to test the technology in theft simulations and are working with ranchers who’ve been the victims of rustling in order to better understand the behaviors of both the thieves and the animals they steal.

Livestock theft has been on the rise in Australia and New Zealand due to relatively high prices for beef and lamb, according to several news reports. In Australia, a national farm crime report from 2001-2002 (the latest available) found that livestock theft was the most commonly reported agricultural crime, costing approximately an estimated $67 million a year ($51.5 million U.S.). Rustling also continues to be a problem in the U.K. and the Southwestern U.S., as well. Livestock theft costs the U.K. more than £2.9 million ($3.6 million U.S.) a year, according to Tim Price, a rural affairs specialist for the UK insurance company NFU Mutual. He wrote in the 2016 Rural Crime Report that the hidden costs included disrupted breeding programs and production, along with animal welfare issues. On top of that, many of the animals are slaughtered in unsanitary conditions with the meat finding its way into the food chain. As for the U.S.? According to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, livestock theft continues to be the number one issue in the industry.

“Stock theft can range from small incursions paring off a handful of animals from larger groups, all the way through to major criminal operations in which entire herds are mustered into portable yards and shipped out in semi‐trailers,” said Trotter in a University of Queensland article. “In all cases the opportunity to steal is a result of the inability of the farmer to constantly monitor the location and behavior of their livestock.”