Cattle Rustling's Big Business - Count Your Cows! NYT 3/27/01

[Guest guest]

Please forward this article to authorities who have to deal with ISKCON's

farms. Due to high beef prices and deteriorating economic conditions --

stealing cows and selling their meat is becoming a very attractive proposition

to certain types of people.

 

In His Vrndavana pastimes Lord Krsna demonstrated that He knew every cow by

name, and He counted them every day. This standard of cow protection set by

Krsna, is also the one which is endorsed by ISKCON law. This article should be

a stark reminder to us all exactly why ISKCON law requires that all Krsna's

cows

should be counted **every day.**

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

*******************************

 

New York Times

March 27, 2001

 

Big Business of Cattle Theft Is a Growing Threat to Ranchers

 

By PAM BELLUCK

 

CENIC, S.D. — Gunslingers brandishing pistols at dawn may be a thing of the

past. Even in this wind-scarred outpost of the South Dakota Badlands, it is

hard

to imagine posses on horseback hunting down outlaws, six-shooters blazing.

 

But one rough-and-tumble signature of the frontier is not only

alive, it is on the rise. Cattle rustlers are plaguing ranchers from Kansas to

Oregon to Texas, using creative strategies and crafty techniques to steal and

sell millions of dollars worth of cows.

 

Geno Hunt discovered that 22 of his 3-week-old calves had been

torn from their mothers and taken from his ranch in Cherry Creek, S.D., when he

heard the cows bawling, their teats swollen with milk.

 

At 4 one morning, Susie Mackey, in Spring Hill, Kan., was

awakened

by the rumble of trailers. She dashed out in pajamas and bare feet and, armed

with a cell phone, jumped in her car, called the police and chased down bandits

who had hightailed it with 24 of her specially bred cattle, getting them all

back and bringing about the arrest of the suspects.

 

And in Jerome, Idaho, David Zortman says that last June, rustlers

posing as employees loaded up 40 or 50 of his calves nearly every day,

spiriting

away some 1,600 animals before he caught on in July.

 

"People are like, 'Is that still going on?' " said Larry

Hayhurst,

a state brand inspector of Idaho. "Yes, people are stealing a lot of cattle.

It's big business."

 

So big that states are waging war on many levels, from using

high-tech investigative techniques to passing laws to appointing special

prosecutors to focus exclusively on rustling.

 

Rustlers are lured by the high price of beef — $1,000 or

thereabouts a cow. But they are thriving, paradoxically, because much of cattle

country has fallen on hard times, losing more and more people, according to the

2000 census.

 

"You have a shrinking population in rural communities, with rural

areas losing schools, businesses, losing Main Streets," said Jerry Derr,

investigative chief for the South Dakota Brand Board. "You used to have more of

a network of people who watched each other's property."

 

Small ranches, unable to make it, sell out to large cattle

raisers, creating ranches with more cattle and land to keep track of. More

ranchers take second jobs in town, entrusting their ranches to employees. And

with their children less likely to stay on the family spread, many ranchers are

older and "don't get out and check their property as much as they used to," Mr.

Derr said.

 

Ranches are also increasingly vulnerable to economic downturns,

so

losing even some of a herd can be devastating.

 

Investigators believe there is a network of cattle rustlers

across

the Midwest and West, some stealing animals by posing as employees or cattle

brokers and others selling the cattle at livestock markets.

 

Often, rustlers load cows into trailers or semi-trucks, helped by

dogs and portable corrals.

 

Sometimes, the thieves kill cattle on site, shooting them or

carving them with chain saws before carting away the meat. In one Idaho case,

Mr. Hayhurst said, a rustler stealing calves cut off their ears, which

sometimes

have identification numbers, and sliced off their brands before burning a new

brand into their hides.

 

And increasingly, there is white- collar cattle rustling, in

which

people hired to raise or sell a rancher's cattle skim money off the sale. These

thieves often use technology to fudge financial records or move money between

bank accounts. Last year, a husband-and-wife team, Buck and Bobo McMillan of

Milton-Freewater, Ore., were convicted of racketeering for stealing $500,000

worth of profits from the sale of cattle they managed for six ranchers.

 

"What we're seeing more and more of is large cases that involve

fraud or embezzlement from half a million to a million dollars worth of

cattle,"

said Larry Gray, who investigates cattle thefts in Texas and Oklahoma.

 

States are working hard to stem the thefts. Some implant computer

chips in cattle for use in sting operations so that when the cattle are stolen

they can be identified by a scanner. Some use DNA fingerprinting to prove that

cattle have been rustled, matching a stolen calf with its mother, for example.

 

But the most dependable weapon is two centuries old: the cattle

brand. And the biggest problem investigators face is that many states do not

require branding. Thieves can steal cows in, say, western South Dakota and sell

them after only a few hours drive since South Dakota east of the Missouri River

does not require brands, while the western part of the state does. And in

branding states, calves too young to be branded make easy targets.

 

Cattle producers and government agencies are discussing a possible

national identification system, in which cows might be stamped with numerical

ear tattoos or implanted with computer chips (in the tail or some other part

that does not become hamburger). But because national identification is

championed by food safety advocates as a way to trace contaminated beef, many

ranchers worry about its potential to inundate ranchers with lawsuits over food

poisoning cases.

 

No one keeps numbers on how many cattle are stolen, mostly

because

they are difficult to track. Many cattle graze in pastures so large, "you can

wear out a good horse in a day just getting across it," said Darryl Howard,

chief brand inspector for the North Dakota Stockmen's Association. "It could be

months before you know anything is missing."

 

But figures from several states show cattle thefts are

increasing.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association recovered $7 million in

stolen livestock in 1999, up from $4 million in 1998. Mr. Derr said that in

South Dakota west of the Missouri River, theft reports had doubled to 1,000

annually from about 500 over the last five years.

 

Many thefts go unreported, investigators say, because ranchers,

proud of their independence and invincibility, do not want to look weak or

invite retaliation. Mr. Derr said that when a man was suspected of stealing

from

a neighbor, the man responded by shooting the neighbor's remaining cows in the

ankles, causing them to die slow deaths, unable to reach food or water.

 

The other day, as Mr. Derr drove through the wintry moonscape of

the Badlands, he gestured toward a ranch and said, "Here's a guy, somebody

stole

a bunch of his cattle, but he won't report it to me because he's afraid of

seeming vulnerable."

 

When they are reported, cattle thefts are notoriously difficult

to

solve, because they involve "evidence that moves on its own," Mr. Derr said.

"If

you don't have any witnesses, you usually can't prove the cattle didn't just

walk away."

 

Mr. Hunt, whose Black Baldy calves were stolen off their mothers

last May, offered a $10,000 reward, about twice the calves' value at the time,

and a hefty sum where he ranches. No one came forward.

 

Cases that get solved are the exception, like the one last month,

when Mr. Derr, in a low-flying plane, spotted 400 stolen cows he had been

searching for in the pasture of a man suspected of taking $1.1 million in

profits from sales of cattle he had been hired to manage.

 

And last year, Mr. Derr found cows stolen years before and used

DNA to prove that calves in the rustler's pasture bearing different brands were

the offspring of the stolen cows and were also considered stolen property.

Investigators are frustrated that many prosecutors place a low priority on

cattle cases, partly because of evidence problems.

 

South Dakota plans to designate a special prosecutor for

livestock

crimes. And recently, the State Legislature approved two laws. One allows a

second type of brand, done by freezing the hide, so that ranchers who dislike

hot-iron brands will have another option. The other makes cattle theft a felony

in all cases.

 

"You can steal a flashlight out of a car if the window's open and

that's a felony in South Dakota," said Bob Gadd, executive director of the

Brand

Board. "But if you steal a calf out of a pasture, that's a misdemeanor. We want

people who steal calves out of pastures to get more than name recognition."