A farm in Moray believes its pair of capybaras have been stolen.<\/p>\n
Thorabella Farm, near Forres, said the animals – the world’s largest rodents and native to South America – vanished from their heated enclosure on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
It has been snowing in the area and the farm said there were no tracks on the ground to suggest the capybaras – called Javier and Esmerelda – had escaped and run off.<\/p>\n
Owner Nikki Lake said it was an “incredibly distressing” incident and police were doing all they could to help.<\/p>\n
Searches have been made of the local area for the animals, which the farm acquired in March.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, the owners were assisted by a friend using a thermal camera in an effort to detect the capybaras in the darkness.<\/p>\n
Mrs Lake said the animals needed heat and a special diet.<\/p>\n
She told BBC Reporting Scotland, News at Seven: “If they have been taken I just hope they are being properly cared for.”<\/p>\n
The capybaras are 10 months old and still not fully grown.<\/p>\n
Mrs Lake said the farm, which is open to the public, had been on a waiting list for 18 months to get the animals and there were not many others in the UK.<\/p>\n
She said thorough searches were made of the enclosure, which is surrounded by 6ft (2m) high fences.<\/p>\n
“We were digging through the snow and my husband was in their pond, which is crazy because it was covered in ice and freezing,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’re devastated.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A farm in Moray believes its pair of capybaras have been stolen. Thorabella Farm, near Forres, said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-232994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}