A south-west farmer, from Dreeite has been fined $75,000 and disqualified for 10 years from owning cattle or being a person in charge of cattle after pleading guilty to 23 animal cruelty charges and being sentenced at the Colac Magistrates' Court.
Agriculture Victoria Program Manager Animal Health and Welfare Compliance, Daniel Bode said the significant offending occurred over a combination of 3 separate incidents across numerous properties in south-west Victoria, over a period of 4 years, under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986.
'This outcome is welcomed by Agriculture Victoria as this level of offending was exceptionally appalling, including multiple failures to provide proper or sufficient feed to his cattle, a failure to treat seriously ill cattle and provide appropriate management care to his stock
Mr Dare was the owner and person in charge of approximately 1,300 head of cattle on various parcels of land in the Dreeite and Nalangil regions between 2022 and 2024.
Mr Bode said many of the cattle were in extremely poor condition and emaciated from a failure to provide sufficient and appropriate feed, resulting in many cows, and in some cases calves, either recently deceased or requiring euthanasia.
During the 28 days provided by the court for Mr Dare to de-stock, Agriculture Victoria will monitor the process.
Post-mortems conducted indicated there was a failure to provide sufficient food, plus having heavy worm burdens, which led to the death of the cattle.
'Apart from the obvious pain and suffering of the animals, animal welfare breaches can jeopardise Victoria's reputation as a humane and responsible producer of food, which can, in turn, affect all producers and livestock owners.'
