JUMPING over someone’s paddock fence to play in the snow is no different to trespassing in a suburban backyard.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The weekend’s snowfalls may have given families the chance to play in the snow, but Yeholme residents have pleaded for people to stop trespassing on their properties.
Among them is Shane Carpenter who said people not only jumped his fence to play in snow on his paddocks, but they also ventured into his shed.
“They’ve walked up and pulled back the cover of my boat and went through my ski gear,” he said.
“Usually they open the front gate, but yesterday [Sunday] they jumped the fence ... what possesses people to think this is all right?
“They had to walk through at least 20 metres of bushland to get to the open paddock.”
Mr Carpenter said his other concern was that a paddock gate was pushed down which could have ended in tragedy if his stock had have wandered out onto the highway.
“There wasn’t anything to stop my sheep and cattle getting out,” he said.
Mr Carpenter said he did not understand why people thought it was appropriate to enter a rural property without permission, when they would not enter a suburban property.
“A lot of people say ‘I had no idea I was doing something wrong’,” he said.
Australian stock horse stud owner Michelle Walker also has a property in Yetholme and said a family trespassed into one of her paddocks on the weekend to play in the snow.
“My biggest concern was them coming into the property where there was livestock and not knowing what they could do,” she said.
Luckily for the family they entered a paddock with yearlings and foals.
“The young horses who were too scared to go and check them out, but if they were in with the stallions or other older horses, they may have got trampled,” Ms Walker posted to social media following the incident.
Chifley Local Area Command Sergeant Alan Beattie urged snow sightseers not to enter any property without permission.
“It’s exactly the same as going into a residential property,” he said of people entering rural properties. “At the end of the day the law still applies.”
Sergeant Beattie said rural property owners who were concerned that people were on their land without permission should call police.