Cattle Rustling Part 2

Cattle Rustling Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Today we talk with Jack Field on the subject of cattle rustling. Most of us think of corny western movies where the good guys in the white hats chase after the rustlers in their black hats...dust a flying and guns a blazin'. Field is the Executive Vice President of the Washington Cattlemen's Association who says that even though today's rustling is not as exciting as the old westerns made it out to be, it is very real and growing. FIELD: It's absolutely the same thing and in southwest Oregon here in the past year or so they had some very large scale operations that were getting pretty sophisticated and doing this. It's a real risk and concern that livestock producers of all sizes have and certainly one that when you talk to cattlemen and especially folks that are operating on large tracks of land whether you are renting state DNR land or running on the forest service in some areas. Everybody talks about wolves, in some cases they're two legged. He says sometimes is can be as simple as a spur of the moment thing. FIELD: Whether they're out driving along and they think well heck let's just go shoot livestock for the sake of it. I had talked to one rancher in Klickitat county and between two or three different ranchers there were I think 8 head that had been shot basically for sport. I don't know what sport there is in shooting cows but some cases were partially butchered. Again, the cheapest insurance people can have is that brand. He says it's a very low tech but highly effective way to combat theft. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.