The province is in the final stages of launching a livestock investigation unit through the RCMP.
Dauphin MLA and Manitoba Agriculture minister Ron Kostyshyn says they will seloect an officer in the coming weeks and months to head up the unit, whose primary role will be to investigate cases of livestock theft in Manitoba.
Kostyshyn adds the addition of this unit comes at a hey time.
"The value of cattle continues to be very lucrative, and we have felt the number of potential cases of livestock that continues to go missing, that we need to bring forward a program that has been running in both Saskatchewan and Alberta for a number of years."
Kostyshyn says over the past 3-1/2 years, there have been 57 cases in Manitoba of livestock going missing.
