A DRAMATIC rise in cattle and sheep rustling has been reported by Scottish police forces.

Farmers as far afield as Skye, Elgin, and even near Bellshill, Lanarkshire, have all reported thefts.

It is baffling police who admit they have had little success in either tracing missing livestock or catching the rustlers.

In December, a farmer at Dundonald near Ullapool, who has had livestock stolen regularly from his farm over the last decade, reported that 75 sheep had gone missing in two months.

Two weeks later, a farmer at Fortrose, near the Black Isle, reported cattle missing, and only last week Strathclyde Police confirmed that it was investigating a case of sheep rustling near Bellshill, where one unfortunate farmer at Newhouse had 26 stolen from his fields.

There have been numerous other incidents and the size of thefts across Scotland has ranged from one animal to hundreds, with losses sometimes valued at thousands of pounds.

The areas most affected have been Ross and Cromarty, Skye, Moray and Banffshire. Fife Constabulary said they had also had incidents, albeit on a smaller scale. The biggest theft was of 210 sheep, worth nearly (pounds) 10,000, from Bodinfinnoch Farm, at Mulben, near Keith last November.

The sheep, which were mainly blackface hogs and Cheviot-crosses wintering at the farm, had been herded towards a gate leading from the field and driven away in a large vehicle.

Grampian Police are working on the theory that the sheep may have been rustled to provide for the much-sought- after West African delicacy ''smokies'' for the ethnic

market.

There is a growing interest in the halal-killed sheep which have their fleeces removed before their hides are scorched with a blow torch.

It is believed this process recreates the taste of an animal roasted outside on a spit, with each sheep killed in this way worth (pounds) 100, compared with the average of about (pounds) 40 for a traditionally slaughtered carcass.

Mike Middlehurst, Gram-pian Police's wildlife liaison officer, said that the thefts, mainly of fat lambs, were part of a well-organised operation which is linked to the illegal slaughter of cast ewes on farms throughout the north east.

''We cannot rule out a link to the smokie trade,'' he said, adding that many thefts were going unreported.

Ian Duncan Millar, farm manager for Bodinfinnoch Farm and Auchnafree, Dunkeld, said: ''It is soul-destroying,'' adding that the sheep were all well tagged.

The Grampian force is now working with the local authority's environmental health officers, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Inland Revenue and the SSPCA on the investigation.

However, police admit that there have been no arrests and that the crime is extremely difficult to solve.

Inspector John Chisholm, of Northern Constabulary, explained that many thefts took place at remote farms where there is little chance of being seen and that livestock ''are spirited away at night in large vehicles''.

The fear is that rustled sheep or cattle are often slaughtered illegally and that the meat is processed in non-hygienic conditions and the public are being warned not to buy meat from unusual sources.

Quality Meat Scotland said it would be virtually impossible for rustlers to sell stolen meat to reputable abattoirs as the cattle passport system, implemented in the aftermath of BSE and foot-and-mouth, enforced some of the most stringent regulations in the world.

However, ''back-street'' slaughterhouses are known to be predominant in the Midlands region of England and it is believed that livestock in Scotland may be heading in that direction.