Disapearing food - the problem with predators

I live in southern Alberta and I was talking to a farmer who lives near me and he had an incident last night.

Sometime after midnight some one(s) drove a truck (or van) down onto one of his field and picked the ears off of a huge number of corn stalks. He figures they stripped an area 50'x50' of ears. He said that lots of farmers are getting hit with obvious signs of theft of crops from isolated sections of fields at night. He said it is much worse than he's ever seen it.

This incident got me started on thinking and I remember another incident earlier this year. A different farmer in the spring came out to find one of his pregnant mares (horse) shot in the head with a 22lr. Then who ever had shot her had cut a huge section of her side off. Like they were trying to butcher her but had used a hatchet to do it. It was reported and even made it on the news that night in Calgary. People thought it was a sicko or some other horse hater. The day after it was on TV a cow at the next farm over was butchered in a similar way. Most of the people around here think that who ever did it didn't know anything about butchering and mistook a horse for a cow. Then when they heard it was a horse they decided to try again for beef. So basicly these people killed two horse (the mare and her unborn colt) and a cow to get a side of beef with out any ribs or most of the meat at all because they used what the RCMP think was a hatchet and no real knowledge.

I know things are bad, but our unemployement #'s are half what most of the USA is sitting at. I'm assuming that these incidents are caused by people who are short on cash and have taken to stealing as a way to feeding themselves.

So I'm starting this thread for two reasons:

1) When the SHTF be vigilant because preditors of the two legged variety are likely to try and take any food you have to feed themselves and family. Even if like in the case of the cow it means ruining most of the meat and depriving others of there property.

2) I have a few questions and I'd like to here peoples thoughts on them since I'm thinking I need to rethink my plans to account for this sort of thing.

a)If it's happening now how bad will it get if things truly hit the fan?

b) Is this isolated to our county or are other rural people (even in other countries) seeing this also?

c) Is it worse than in previous years other places?

d) How are others planning on solving this? I would prefer this not be too specific and anyone who plans on answering "shoot them" or something similar keep to your self please. I want a realistic approach that doesn't involve dozens of shallow graves on the edge of my property.

e) If someone has engaged in this practice I'd like to know why you did it. You can post anonymously. Or if people have ideas on why they think people are doing it, i'd like to here them. I personally will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's hunger and not alcohol that made them do these things.

editted to fix a sentence that went missing. Likely because I think faster than I type.

[edit on 3-9-2009 by exile1981]

www.cfbf.com...

Ok I found an article from California and it's dated 2006 that talks about thieves stripping brand new almond orchards of the seedlings in one night. It says that thousands of dollars of crops per year in one county in California alone go missing.

www.cbc.ca...

Here is another article from 2006 on truck loads of potatoes and cabbages being stolen from fields in Labrador.

www.ctv.ca...

Here 4 farmers in Manitoba lost 100K of cannola.

I found a gov't of California website that says that farmers should watch for Avacado thieves this year. I can't read the full text of the article or what it advises without getting a password from the gov't so I doubt they will give me one.

I'm thinking that if things are getting this bad now then they will be worse when unemployement gets worse and people get more desperate.

When the SHTF nothing will be safe. You are only going to see more and more of this. It will not be long before whole warehouses are hit. And do I dare say it. It may get to the point that PEOPLE are on the menu

When you are hungry an desperate, you'll do just about anything.
For protection, barbed and razor wire, traps, building ditches around your property, spear topped poles for fencing.

reply to post by calstorm


Thanks I have a few acres and it has a 6 foot chain link fence around it. I have two sheds prebuilt that I could drill holes in the ground and raise up on 6"x6" posts stored on my land to make a shed on stilts. The idea is I could cover the approaches to my land with look-out sheds.

I'm not sure if we can have razor wire here, I should see if I can get some to store in a shed till I need to string it.

Originally posted by fixer1967
When the SHTF nothing will be safe. You are only going to see more and more of this. It will not be long before whole warehouses are hit. And do I dare say it. It may get to the point that PEOPLE are on the menu

www.etrucker.com...
I just found a survey by the Gov't on hijackings and thefts of tractor trailers in 2008. Food followed by medicine was the item targetted most frequently.

Another article www.indybay.org...
talks about food shortages around the world and thefts have increased so much that theft is on the rise. It's not MSM and I have no idea of the quality of the source but it came up in a google search.

A simple solution would be to keep a portion of cached stocks available and easy to find by a thief...the trick would be to 'bait' to surface of cans/bottles/fuel container handles with a skin absorbed contact poison of some variety.

Maybe a large wedge of dried toxic funghi in a jar with a good splash of pure alcohol and left to 'tincture' and then the resulting solution applied to the surfaces of stealable goodies that will only affect handling with bare hands

By the time the effects begin the theives may put the effects down to plundering tainted supplies at the least, or have a very very very bad time at the best

i've found a lot of "booby trap" ideas for protecting farmland...a simple google will bring up plenty

most are taken from vietnam, and cuba, as well as stuff i've learned from raids on marijuana farms nearby...

idk if that is the intent of the farm owner, but that could be an idea

or invest in IR cameras to scout selected areas, game trail cameras work well, you get what you pay for...

reply to post by exile1981


I think as time grows short before TSHTF, this will increase and get really bad.
My dad has one lime tree, how bad is this? He had one lime tree that had 17 limes,
Someone came along, waited till they were ripe and took them all.

Originally posted by calstorm
When you are hungry an desperate, you'll do just about anything.
For protection, barbed and razor wire, traps, building ditches around your property, spear topped poles for fencing.

Remember people that these are human beings just as you are, they are probably starving and trying to survive. If you have a large farm and have more then enough to feed your family why not put up a sign saying " Please don't steal, come up to the house and I will provide you with what I can spare" .. We all may be in this same boat soon.