Evidence at the scene revealed that after struggling to herd the animals away, the stock thieves spitefully beat each alpaca to death with a steel pipe.
Jandre Boshoff, owner of Fairview Estates’ Estancia Alpacas in the Fouriesburg area, only recently notified Farmer’s Weekly and the South African Alpaca Breeders’ Society of the incident. This followed his learning of the theft of 30 alpacas from KwaZulu-Natal Midlands alpaca breeder, Chris Griffith. (FW, 22 November).
“I am still disgusted at the killings,” said Boshoff. “If you can’t steal something, why kill it?
“This is the first time in the more than 10 years my family and I have been breeding alpacas that something ever happened to them. Our land is close to the Lesotho border and I’ve now moved my alpacas to a safer part of the farm.”
Mystery surrounds the motives of the thieves in both cases. Alpaca meat is not widely considered tasty, and the animals are generally bred for their top quality wool and to act as guards against small predators, like jackal and caracal, in sheep flocks.
There are an estimated 5 000 to 7000 alpacas in SA, and legislation reportedly requires all of them to be marked with a registered brand. These factors, along with the alpaca’s unusual build, would surely make it difficult for stock thieves to sell the animals without arousing suspicion.
Griffith told Farmer’s Weekly he was shocked to learn of the killing of Boshoff’s alpacas. He added that a characteristic of these animals was that they tended to strongly resist efforts by strangers to herd them away from the main herd.
“There’s still been no information on what happened to my alpacas,” added Griffith. “The R5 000 reward for information that leads to their recovery still stands.”
* Anyone with information regarding the theft of Griffith’s alpacas should contact Terry Warwick at 073 480 8872 or [email protected], or Colonel Freddie van Tonder of the SAPS Stock Theft Unit at 082 411 6468.
