Police in Suffolk have a new device to help them identify the owners of escaped animals.
The force has bought 11 multi-chip scanners which can read a wide-range of microchips.
Suffolk Constabulary hope the devices will be particularly useful in identifying horses found fly-grazing, abandoned or escaped, or any animals involved in a collision with a car.
A scanner will be located at police stations across the county in Mildenhall, Newmarket, Haverhill, Bury St Edmunds, Sudbury, Stowmarket, Eye, Ipswich, Woodbridge, Halesworth and Lowestoft.
Pc Mark Bryant, rural crime officer, said: “We are often dealing with cases involving loose animals, in particular horses illegally grazing on private land, where identifying who they belong to can be a time consuming process.
“These new scanners should greatly reduce the time officers have to spend resolving these matters, whilst enabling us to locate owners and reunite them with their animals.”
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