“It was the case that the owner ... penned the sheep on Saturday and on Sunday morning they were discovered to be missing,” said Superintendent Bob Noble at the Wagga precinct. 

In response, police are making an urgent appeal for information in order to locate the sheep. 

“I suspect there may be people out there that know who might be responsible for the theft of this livestock,” said Superintendent Noble.

“Stealing of sheep or livestock generally has another level of complexity in respect that you have livestock that need to be managed.

“They need to be kept alive, you need a method of disposing of them if that’s what you’re going to do and obviously [there are] identifiers attached to livestock generally that make things difficult for would-be thieves.

“There’s a level of organisation required that sometimes provides lines of inquiry for police.”