“It’s beginning to feel like the Wild West up here when it comes to sheep crime – it’s soul-destroying,” says farmer Colin Abel, scanning his flock high up on west Dartmoor farmland.
This winter – like most years – Mr Abel is missing more than 400 ewes.
He says in the last decade he has lost nearly £500,000 worth of livestock to sheep rustling, which is pushing some farmers to the brink of quitting or bringing their flocks off the moors.
