UK Police Hunt for a Herd of Stolen Elk
Elks seem to get more than their fair of bizarre headlines.
Drunk elks get stuck in apple trees, and it's even been said that elks once ruled New York City. But this might be a first for us.
The Guardian reports that police in the UK are searching for a herd of stolen elk:
Officers believe the thieves may have used dogs to round the large beasts up and must have had a sizeable lorry. They are particularly keen to speak to anyone who has been offered cuts of elk meat – or even an actual elk. Fortunately, farmer Paul Richards managed to stop a herd of bison, which roam in the same fields as the elk, from escaping after a fence was cut.
Much like the epidemic of bee thefts I reported on a while back, there may indeed be a surreal, even comical, aspect to such stories for those of us who are not farmers. An image of nefarious crooks herding a lorry load of elk is just so far removed from what most of us consider to be crime.
And yet theft from farms and farmers is a major threat to the economic sustainability of small- to medium-scale agriculture. And that's something that should concern us all.
