Sheep on the lam Fate of farm animal still unknown

MEGAN MOUREAUX Managing Editor @meganlmoureaux

Security at the Pierce College farm has been heightened after a report of a stolen sheep was filed with the campus Sheriff’s Department late last month.

On the morning of Monday, April 20, student-worker Stacy Carpio discovered a newly-tagged baby sheep was missing. The oneweek-old male, Known as a ram lamb, disappeared from a locked pasture. A hole was found in the pasture’s fencing.

“Stacy told us there had been a lamb stolen from the sheep unit and that she was the one who discovered the cut fence,” said Joan Ostergren, an animal science agricultural enterprise student.

Agriculture and natural resources department chair Leland Shapiro, the director of the preveterinary science program, said he believes it had to be a person who stole the ram lamb.

“It was behind an eight foot high fence,” Shapiro said. “So it’s not possible for a coyote, and if somehow it was possible for the coyote to get in, there would be drag marks and blood.”

Ostergren worked with the sheep this semester, and performed various medical procedures as part of the Animal Science 506 lab course.

“Is it an inside job? Is it a student or somebody that works here that decided to take the animal,” Ostergren asked. “I would hope not.”

According to Shapiro, it is “rare,” but confirmed animals have been stolen from the farm in the past.

“It’s mainly equipment people steal, like copper and wire,” Shapiro said. “But we have the Sheriff here and if they look and catch them, they’ll be arrested.”

Shapiro asked the deputies to monitor the farm more at night, and said he was told by vice president of administrative services Rolf Schleicher that the school has