Rustlers get smart

JUNTURA, Ore. -- Bill Butler counts his cattle carefully when he turns them out from his isolated ranch to graze in the spring, and again when they come back in the fall.

He allows for the few that will die in between. But each autumn, more than a few have disappeared. Someone has been helping themselves to his herd.

In a much wilder West, a captured rustler could expect little more than a drumhead trial and a fast hanging. Rustlers aren't hanged from trestles and tree limbs anymore, but they're still out there, and they're getting smarter.

"If we knew how they do it, we could stop it," said Butler, who was born on his Malheur County ranch 50 years ago.

Butler's 1,000 or so head of cattle are put out on about 130,000 acres. He uses a plane and a small helicopter to inspect his herd and check 400 to 500 miles of fence.

But a lot can go unseen in isolated places like Malheur County, nearly 10,000 square miles of sagebrush, juniper trees and grass spread out across southeastern Oregon.

Butler's ranch house is 16 miles up a gravel road from the nearest highway. A sign west of Vale, the county seat, warns "next gas 68 miles" and when you get there sometimes there isn't any.

With some of his 14 deputies dedicated to other duties, Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe has only eight to police the desolate back roads and pastures that are home to the cattle, an estimated 181,000.

"Cattle are sent out to range in April, and they aren't brought in until September, October or November," Wolfe said. A cow could be gone for three or four months before a rancher notices it's missing.

He recalled a theft of 42 in the Saddle Butte area two years ago.

"The owner had overflown it three times. The cattle weren't dead. He had ridden it twice, and the fence was in good shape. All we found was tire tracks from a truck and trailer. We never found a trace of those cattle."

In a normal year, Butler loses 12 or 13 cows plus their calves. Prices fluctuate, but a yearling cow now is worth about $1,000.

Many cattlemen, especially the smaller operators, work on a shoestring.

"They need every head of cattle they have just to make ends meet," Wolfe said. "The loss of 40 or 50 can be quite a hit."

And ranchers are more exposed to the risk of theft than most businessmen.

"Nobody else, like a jeweler, would hang a diamond ring on a tree and come back to get it in three months. But livestock people have to do that to utilize the forage that is available," said Gary Shoun of the Colorado State Board of Livestock Inspection.

Rustlers often steal unbranded calves. "The thieves can then put on their own brand, and without a DNA test it's hard to ... trace them back to their mothers," Wolfe said.

Wolfe also recalled a case where a rustler was skinning the brand off living cattle, letting the wounds heal and then rebranding them.

The sheriff's livestock patrol takes down license numbers and other data from unfamiliar vehicles in the outback and leaves tickets on the vehicles noting the fact. Volunteers fly over certain areas to supplement the deputies.

Still, Wolfe added, "being reactive sure hasn't worked very well for us."

In most states, brand inspectors examine each animal that leaves the state to make sure the hauler is authorized to do so.

Oregon has one full-time brand inspector, 65 part-timers and five supervisors, said Roger Huffman, administrator of the animal health division at the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Even so, 829 cattle were unaccounted for in Oregon in 1999, 938 in 2000 and 722 in 2001.

Rustlers caused few problems in Montana, where hundreds of brand inspectors examine cattle shipments each time they cross even a county line, said Jack Wiseman, administrator of the Brands Enforcement Division of the Montana Department of Livestock.

Shoun said Colorado averages about 650 head of livestock reported missing or stolen a year, although a single operation a few years ago took 700 cattle. Most were sent through a packing plant in Arkansas, which has less brand verification.

It's worse in California, where John Suther, supervisor of the state's brand inspector unit, says losses average 1,600 head, nearly $1 million a year.

"It varies from one head to a truckload of 40 head of cattle," he said. "Some are slaughtered on site. We find carcasses."

He said authorities can recover 15 percent to 20 percent of stolen cattle.

In Wyoming, losses are fairly steady at $600,000 to $800,000 a year, said Kelly Hamilton of the Wyoming Livestock Board.

"Some Wyoming land is owned by people from out of state who think it would be fun to own a cattle ranch, and maybe they don't pay too close of an attention to management," he said.

Texas and Oklahoma have 31 brand inspectors supplied by the Texas and Southwest Cattleraisers' Association, founded in 1977 to combat cattle theft.

"There's no open range anymore, but there's plenty of cattle theft," Executive Vice President Matt Brockman said. "Thieves are smarter and more deceptive than they used to be, and losses today run in the millions of dollars."