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Cattle rustling may sound antiquated but it's a problem that's very real for modern day ranchers, particularly those in southeastern Oregon. The vast, sparsely populated landscape enables cattle thieves to evade detection as they move large animals long distances. Simply keeping track of cows can be a challenge. Branding is the traditional method, but brand designs are only recognized within the state. Electronic tracking with tags or microchips are another option, but ranchers have concerns about both.
The USDA is working with states to develop a program to trace cattle ownership in order to contain disease outbreaks. The first proposal for livestock tracking rolled out by the Obama Administration got a chilly reception from ranchers, who feared new federal rules would burden them with extra costs that could slow productivity.
Have you lived or worked on a ranch? Have you ever had livestock stolen from you? What is the best way to keep track of animals?
Click here for more on cattle rustling, including a slideshow from OPB News.
GUESTS:
- Bob Skinner: Owner of Skinner Ranches and former president of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association
- Don Hansen: State veterinarian
- Rodger Huffman: State brand inspector
- Julie Laird: Works on Laird Ranch and was the coordinator for the Northwest Pilot Project for Animal Identification and Tracking through USDA
- Kerry St. Syr: Executive director of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency
Tagged as: cattle · eastern oregon · ranching
Photo credit: adamsofen / Creative Commons
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Is cattle rustling still a capital offense? When was the last time a cattle rustler was actually caught? What was the punishment?
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If you can't put a microchip in the animal's main body (shoulder, flank) then what about "chipping" the animal's ear?
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That seems the obvious answer to me. A bunch of steers missing their ears would be pretty suspicious. No?
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That's sorta what I was thinking...a herd of one-eared cattle would seem sorta fishy (pardon the mixed metaphor. What's a metaphor? .... Cows.)
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How about leaving the branding/ear tagging as it is, and requiring that every vehicle be identified such that GPS tracking can be done? Assuming that the stolen cattle are trucked out, maybe monitoring who is in the area would be easier than tracking individual animals. Though this smacks of Big Brother, it would allow law enforcement to track vehicles anywhere across state lines/country boundaries for legitimate crime investigations, similar to gun databases, fingerprint databases, etc.
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Considering the number of pilots returning from the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, I wonder if the ranchers ought to buy an old Piper Cub and hire some of those pilots who have such a burning desire to fly that they will basically fly anything and for minimum wages, just to be in the air, and have them patrol up there looking for anything that looks out of order. They could radio the local law enforcement folks and the ranchers and get them to check things out.
I wonder about those Global Hawk drones that the military and NASA uses to just loiter around up high looking for stuff. What they cost to fly.
Also, NASA has great experience and knowledge in working with remote sensors to do science and observations and I suggest that the ranchers call up NASA and ask them if they can come up with anything to address the rustling problems. NASA does a whole lot more than flying into space.
I'd bet that schools like MIT, Stanford, and Cal Tech, would welcome this as an engineering and science problem to let their students work on just for the experience. Or maybe ask some of the great Ag schools, like Oregon State, Fresno, Nebraska, etc, to put their engineering and science students to work thinking about this. This is a wonderful problem to use as a school project.
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Maybe not a Piper Cub, but UAV's make sense. In fact the 2nd (3rd?) generation UAV's are being developed with commercial fishermen in mind. Free-range livestock seems not the far different from fishing.
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Well, I thought of a Piper Cub because it has huge balloon tires and can land just about anywhere and it can also fly fairly slowly, down to about 80 mph if I recall correctly, so the pilot and/or passenger could get a good look at what's going on. It was the "old reliable" for many many years.
Robinson helicopters are fairly inexpensive too.
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Is the cost of loosing cattle a price ranches must pay for using remote public land versus containing cattle on private ranches?
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One thing I heard in the second segment (just after 9:20) that rang inaccurate: The system in the grocery store with the little red lights at the check-out is NOT RFID...that is an optical system that uses LASERs to read a bar code on a package. They DO, however, use RFID to help reduce "shrinkage" (retail jargon for theft) at the egress, and everybody's favorite 900-pound gorilla (WalMart) is developing a system use RFID for receipt and checking in of deliveries across the freight dock of their stores.
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Death loss v stolen? So I wonder what the insurance situation is, if a claim pays off for stolen cows but not for a death loss cow?
Cui Bono? Who is rustling who?
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If we can register and recognize corporate brands (Nike, Coca-Cola, etc.) across state lines, then why would it not be possible to set up a National Registry of Cattlemen's Brands. I'm sure that most (if not all) cattle ranchers participate in some sort of cooperative marketing organization (such as the one that runs the commercials with the tagline, "Beef. It's what's for dinner."). What if just ONE percent, a single penny on the dollar were earmarked (I know, earmark is a dirty word) for the purpose of setting up the Registry. Indeed, there is no reason that I can think of why Canadian Cattle Ranchers couldn't participate, as well. In fact, it would make that old cattle rustler's line from the Westerns a thing of the past. (Black Bart: "Come on, Boys -- once we get these cows across the state line, the Sheriff can't touch us!")
(Okay...getting down off the soap-box. Next...!)