The owner of a John Deere Gator successfully recovered his vehicle after it was stolen at the Electric Picnic musical festival in Co. Laois recently.

The gator which was stolen was a four-seater John Deere Gator that was olive green in colour, with two spotlights on the roof, agri-grip tyres, and did not have a bull bar.

The owner, Liam Ross, runs a company that supplies gators and Kubotas to various events and concerts across the country, including Electric Picnic, the Irish Open, and the National Ploughing Championships.

After leaving the gators at the Electric Picnic site on Wednesday, August 21 on 6:00p.m, Ross said it was not until the next morning when he was contacted to be told that his four-seated gator was missing.

The entire day on Thursday was spent checking the Electric Picnic site and car parks for a sign of the gator.

"I pulled out of the site at about 9 o'clock that night and I knew then I was in trouble, it was gone off the site," Ross told Agriland.

Ross then began to post online that his gator was stolen and offered a reward for its return.

Within an hour Ross said he received a call from a man who allegedly claimed to know the gator's whereabouts, and was asking to be compensated for revealing the location.

This man allegedly claimed to be "partially involved" in the matter, but stressed that he was not involved in the taking of the gator.

However, Ross did not accept the offer, and instead chose to offer the man a reward for the return of the gator directly to him.

A "stalemate" was reached, Ross explained, as he did not hear anything from this man again.

There was no news about the John Deere until last weekend, when a farmer local to the area around the Electric Picnic site got in contact with Ross.

The farmer informed him that the gator had come into his possession after he spotted it sitting in a nearby field.

The gator was reportedly first hidden in a corn field and was covered by a tarpaulin sheet that had blown away, which then exposed it to the farmer.

The farmer then monitored the location of the gator in the field, before spotting the thieves moving it to a nearby headland.

Ross explained that the farmer kept an eye on the situation, until he saw Ross' online post about the stolen gator, and contact was then made.

The gator was recovered by Ross earlier this week on Monday, August 26.

Ross said that "the strange thing" was that there was a selection of 20 two-seater gators that he described as "fast movers", which he said could be sold in Europe and "never be seen again".

"There's probably only 15/20 four-seater John Deere Gators in the country and I own half of them. It would pop up somewhere along the way.

"I'm happy the farmer got the [reward] and not the thief himself," Ross added.