Bajan beef farmers are raising hell over the continued theft and slaughter of their cattle at night, charging that the operations are so smoothly executed they have to be the work of professionals.
Just two weeks ago the thieves removed and slaughtered a prized bull from a St Thomas property, leaving only the head, carcass, intestines and skin at the end of a long trail in Hangman’s Hill in the same parish.
In this case, the victim was an Argentine national in Barbados on a work permit, who bought the animal – whose photograph was used as a symbol for local agricultural production and in support of a buy-local campaign on the trucks of a local feed company – and fed it until it was worth in the region of $3 000.
Barbadian businessman Roddy Davis, of Spring Homes Limited, with whom the Argentine is employed, explained that his employee tied the bull outside his home before he went to bed, but when he did not find it the next morning he followed a trail of trampled bush until he came upon the remains.
“This is really not good enough and I do not believe the authorities are doing enough,” Davis said. “Not so long ago the same thing happened to me . . . . These people are professional butchers. When you look at how they slaughter you have to agree they are professionals.
