Criminologists at the University of New England will conduct a world-first trial to test how a new smart solar-powered ear tag could help prevent stock theft.
The trial, to take place at the end of March, will see the ear tag developed in Australia by Queensland agricultural technology company Ceres Tag get put to the test in a mock stock theft situation.
Twenty sheep on UNE's SMART Farms have been tagged with the new device, worn on collars for welfare reasons, in readiness for a coordinated stock theft recovery event by UNE criminologists in collaboration with NSW Police due to take place on 29 March.
Co-director of the UNE Centre for Rural Criminology Kyle Mulrooney said stock theft remains a huge problem in rural communities.
"It can have devastating financial as well as psychological impacts on farmers but has been a notoriously difficult crime to prevent or correct," Dr Mulrooney said.
"Smart animal ear tags were one of the crime prevention tools survey respondents indicated they were willing to use to help prevent crime.
"With this new Ceres Tag product, we feel very optimistic that we finally have the technology that will give farmers more confidence and peace of mind and allow the police greater opportunity to intervene and solve these crimes."
The new technology takes a traditional animal ear tag and adds specially designed animal monitoring capabilities, with direct to satellite GPS among them.
During the mock theft, stock will be moved towards the Tamworth abattoirs while researchers constantly monitor the quality of the data from the tag, as well as the benefits for the police response to the event.
"What we'll be measuring is the ability of the Ceres Tag to notify the farmer in real time when there is some level of agitation in their livestock, which in a real situation on a farm could be caused by an animal, an intruder, or trespassers trying to muster stock for theft," Dr Mulrooney said.
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State Rural Crime Coordinator, Detective Chief Inspector Cameron Whiteside, said the Rural Crime Prevention Team is continually looking for opportunities to trial technology and identifiers, including the use of GPS devices, to increase the reporting of rural crimes in a timely manner.
The RCPT will oversee the capability of the technology and check the stock as part of a coordinated response.
"It's really important that we all have this experience with the technology, not just to ensure the integrity of the data, but also to ensure there's an effective response to the data that's feeding through," Dr Mulrooney said.
"In the past, it has often not always been possible to work out where stock has come from, even if we know they're stolen.
"But these tags will provide all that data, and when properly secured, they cannot be removed without causing serious damage to the animal - which would make it much more difficult to sell them in the legal market."
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