They covered their tracks.When organic farmer Jonathan Fortin woke to check on his herd of 75 prized Black Angus cattle this weekend he was greeted to an unlikely sight in La Belle’s Eastern townships near Québec City.They were gone. Every single one, seemingly vanished without a trace.Closer inspection revealed the presence of tire tracks and a fence that appeared to be dismantled, leading him and the Sûreté du Québec to believe they had been stolen.If so, it’s one of the biggest cattle rustling heists to go down in any part of Canada, much less Québec.Fortin, who works as a farmer by day and chef at a local restaurant by night, left the farm around 4:30 p.m. the previous afternoon and returned around 10:30 p.m. that evening. That leads him to suspect that all 75 cows were rounded up and hauled off on multiple trailers over the span of about three hours.Neighbours reported seeing trailer lights and hearing a commotion in the field, but assumed it was buyers coming to pick up the cattle in question.Although the animals were tagged, none were insured — leading to losses of more than $200,000..“As they were animals that were 100% outside, the only loss I could have was either theft or lightning. We know that lightning happens very rarely. The theft, I have rarely heard cattle that was stolen or an entire herd,”Farmer Jonathan Fortin.Local farm groups said they have never heard of anything like it. Under Quebec law, the animals are all identified with two tags at birth and are required to be registered at the slaughterhouse when they are eventually turned into cutlets and burgers.“As they were animals that were 100% outside, the only loss I could have was either theft or lightning. We know that lightning happens very rarely. The theft, I have rarely heard cattle that was stolen or an entire herd,” he told CBC French.According to police the investigation is focused on finding equipment or even a field to graze the animals. “You can’t move that many livestock in a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla,” police spokesman Louis-Philippe Ruel told the Canadian Press.His website, Ferme ForThé, lists a variety of organic beef products including beef bacon and liver.Fortin told local news outlets it would take him about two years to rebuild the herd from scratch and start all over..According to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, old-fashioned rustling is the "second oldest profession in the world" and used to be considered a hanging offence on the prairies.About 50 cases are reported each year in Alberta alone, costing millions of dollars in losses. Most cases are inside jobs involving employees, neighbours or friends who know details of the operation.In 2022, an Athabasca County producer lost 85 cattle including two bulls, four cows and 79 calves. In 2018, rustlers made off with 100 calves belonging to a neighbour. The cases remain unsolved.Which is another way of saying: To err is human; to moo, bovine.
