After discovering a truckload of yearling ewes missing from their family ranch on July 8, Guy Edwards of Wright, Wyoming, reported the missing livestock to the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and the Wyoming Livestock Board Inspectors. Word spread like wildfire.
Just a few weeks later, the father-son team found that their counts weren’t adding up when sorting ewes in that same pasture where their sheep had gone missing. In total, there were 48 more ewes than there should have been — ones that Edwards had reported missing earlier that month.
“We ran them down the alley and counted them again, and all of my ewes were there” which means that “somewhere between July 11 and 20, some of the ewes that were stolen had been returned “to the same pasture even,” Edwards explained to Western Ag Reporter.
Edwards says that there’s nowhere in that pasture where the sheep could have been hiding, and they searched through neighboring pastures and flocks with no luck. Three to four days later, they found tracks where the lambs were loaded out of that same pasture.
Although 48 of the ewes have been returned, his dad is still missing 32 head out of the original, stolen group.
When the missing report was made, Edwards posted on social media explaining the situation and shared the ear tags in hopes that his the yearling ewes will be found too.
Since Edward’s post on Facebook, over 1,200 people have shared it — and that’s why he believes the ewes were returned. In addition to social media, the Wyoming Livestock Board and law enforcement have informed surrounding sale barns in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado to ensure that sales keep an eye out for the missing brands and scrapie tags in the stolen ewes.
Anyone with information on the missing sheep can contact the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office at 307-682-7271, or the Wyoming Livestock Board at 307-777-7515.
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