WAUZEKA, Wis. -- The Crawford County Sheriff's Department is investigating a case of possible cattle rustling near Wauzeka after a local farmer reported that some of his herd is missing.

Farmer Larry Stluka said that he's doing everything he can to find the missing cattle or who might have taken them. He said he has been searching for 11 of Maine Anjou and Shorthorn crossbred beef cattle that have been missing since late November.

During the first part of gun deer season, his wife said that she went out to do chores and found a fence destroyed and cattle everywhere.

"When he went to do pregnancy checking is when he started realizing numbers were missing," said Carrie Stluka, Larry's wife.

After checking with neighbors and renting an airplane to check the countryside, he reported it to the Crawford County sheriff, who is investigating it as a theft, WISC-TV reported.

"Cattle are trackable through sale barn records, that kind of thing," said Crawford County Sheriff Jerry Moran. "But, if someone took them and joined them with their herd or something, then it's much more difficult to locate them."

Finding them is the only thing about which Stluka said that he can think.

"It should be taken more seriously than it is. It's not taken seriously enough," he said. "It used to be very serious -- as bad as robbing a bank."

For his family, the prize-winning animals mean more than the $10,000 or more dollars worth of cattle that he's lost, WISC-TV reported.

"It's not just income today and tomorrow. This is our income for years down the road, that one of the heifers could have had that World Beef Expo champion," he said.

Carrie Stluka said that she is convinced that someone is involved in the theft.

"Somebody knows. They just didn't disappear," she said.

Both the Sheriff's Department and Stluka have been going to sale barns around the area and into Iowa to check for if any of the cows or heifers have come through. The Stlukas are also posting fliers with descriptions of the cows, which range in weight from 900 to 1,400 pounds.

The family is asking anyone with information to contact the Crawford County Crimestoppers at 866-779-7297.

This isn't a unique case for Crawford County. It prosecuted a case in 2001, where the cattle rustlers were caught and prosecuted, WISC-TV reported.