A STOLEN horse that had been missing from the Atherton Tablelands for more than two years has been returned to its owner.
When the distinctive Appaloosa mare went missing from a property in Wondecla at the beginning of 2015, her owner made a plea on social media for everyone to keep an eye out for her. As time passed she started to lose hope that her beautiful horse would be found alive, and put the disappearance down to a snake bite.
Owner Rebecca Magro was talked into one final social media plea by a friend last week, which netted a result. After receiving a private message in relation to her missing horse, Miss Magro took the information to detectives from Mareeba Stock and Rural Crime Investigation Squad (SARCIS), along with photographs which helped identify the horse.
SARCIS detectives are encouraging animal owners to not only invest their time in taking photos of their animals, but also to have their animals micro-chipped which assisted in confirming that this was a stolen horse.
Plain clothes Constable Michael Hinchcliffe stated that the team was very happy that they could reunite this horse with it’s owner.
“It was extremely helpful that the owner took proactive steps and photographed and microchipped her horses. This greatly assisted our investigations,” he said.
A 38-year-old Atherton man has been charged with stealing an animal that is stock and is expected to appear in the Atherton Magistrates Court on March 7.
SARCIS detectives thanked the public for providing the breakthrough in this investigation, and encourage other people with knowledge of stolen animals or other criminal activities to contact CrimeStoppers in a timely manner and report the information to assist police. CrimeStoppers 1800 333 000.