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While some might think cattle rustling is a thing of the past – dating back to the days of shootouts with outlaws and no-good robbers holding up banks and trains – it appears the crime is alive and well in the San Juan Mountains.
At least, that's what officials think may have happened to more than 180 cows this fall, reported missing by their owners.
The cattle, owned by several different ranchers, were last spotted grazing in the high country southwest of Montrose. Reports indicate some were last seen in September or October and were noticed missing when the owners rounded them up, to bring them off the mountain for the winter.
Brand inspectors received the first report of missing cattle in the area in late November, according to Todd Inglee, Colorado's brand commissioner.
The first several reports added up to 115 cattle – much more than the usual few that go missing here and there. Then another 29 were reported. More reports started coming in as other ranchers checked their herds and noticed cows were missing. As of Wednesday, the number of missing cattle in the region was up to 187. All the animals had been grazing on lands within roughly 20 miles.
While it wouldn't be unusual for a few animals to go missing after a summer of grazing in the high country, the number of cattle lost from this many owners is suspicious.
The brand inspector has now received reports of missing cattle from six different owners who were all grazing their herds in roughly the same region. Most of the reports came from herds that were grazing on the Uncompahgre Plateau off Divide Road. Another report came from about 20 miles southwest of Montrose in Sanborn Park.
All the cattle reported missing were branded, according to information the owners provided to the brand inspector.
Most of the cattle reported missing were young. According to Inglee, 166 of them were calves. The remaining 21 were full-grown cows.
Norwood rancher Mont Snyder, whose family has been in the cattle business for five generations, first noticed he had 26 calves missing in late November.
His family grazes cattle on about 50,000 acres of public and private lands, and like most ranchers they take the cows and calves up in the summer to feed. They check on the cattle, but no one stays with them. They come back in the late fall to gather the herd, wean the calves, and then take all the animals back down to feed on hay for the winter.
Snyder noticed they were missing animals when they counted the calves after weaning them from their mothers. In a large herd like his, with more than 800 mother cows, a calf count shows who is missing.
They went back up to check, searching for telltale signs of dead cattle. It's not unusual to lose a few to predators, or sometimes find cattle that have been shot and killed either on purpose or by accident.
Ranchers look for signs of other animals coming and going – possibly hinting at the location of dead cattle.
“If we could have found something – hides, heads, legs, something like that … the birds, the coyotes spread everything, and tell us where we have a dead calf,” Snyder said.
But they found nothing. It's like they just vanished.
Snyder asked a pilot friend to take him up and fly over the area, in an attempt to find any sign of the missing animals.
They found no signs of the cows.
He has no doubt that his cattle were stolen, without a trace of evidence at the scene.
“Full animals are gone. Even the guts are gone,” he said.
The investigation into the missing cattle is ongoing, and the brand commissioner said the information has been shared with law enforcement agencies as well as livestock sale barns, where the animals may be taken for sale to others.
Seventeen states in the Western U.S. have mandatory brand laws requiring animals to be identified and ownership confirmed with brand inspectors before transferring ownership or butchering them. Inglee said the 68 brand inspectors in Colorado help ensure brand laws, some of the oldest laws on the books in the state, are enforced. Their goal is to protect the livestock industry from losses due to theft, illegal butchering or animals getting lost.
“But 80% of what we do is on the front end,” he said.
Most of their work is done in documenting movement of animals – inspecting animals and verifying ownership before they're transported more than 75 miles within the state or across state lines, or inspecting and verifying ownership of livestock at auctions, for example. Though they are statutory peace officers, in cases like this, brand inspectors work with law enforcement to investigate theft.
The missing cattle have been reported to a network of law enforcement, livestock sales barns and others through the International Association of Livestock Identification. The hope is that if the animals were taken out of Colorado, others may have information that could help with the investigation.
For ranchers like Snyder, cattle theft isn't like someone stealing other material things, like a car or a four-wheeler.
It takes time to build a herd, and two years to raise a calf to the point where it's ready for market.
Ranching is a way of life, as well as a business, and cattle rustling is an attack on a rancher's livelihood.
The stolen calves were each worth $1,800, since Snyder had already contracted to sell them for that amount to a buyer. He has no way to recover the $46,800 loss.
Inglee suspects the high price of cattle has something to do with the missing animals. Some producers sold off the majority of their herds, due to weather, drought, hay prices or other issues. The lack of supply increases the price of the live animals.
“Our domestic herd is the smallest it's been in 70 years,” he said. “That's driving the price of the animals high.”
The total amount of loss for the 187 cattle reported missing is estimated between $300,000 and $400,000.
For Snyder and the other ranchers, the loss is another hit to an industry that already weathers other storms, including drought, development pressures and uncertainty.
“We were going to make some money this year,” Snyder said. “And then this happened and there goes the profit.”
“It's a crying shame that it happens to anybody,” he said. “Thievery of anything. It makes you wonder why you're in the business.”
Anyone who has information that could help with the investigation is asked to report it by calling the nonemergency Montrose law enforcement dispatch number, 970-249-9110.
To read more stories from the Ouray County Plaindealer, visit www.ouraynews.com.
