Sheriff reports rustling on rise

Nevada Daily Mail

Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman said the recent report of a stolen horse trailer and attempted cattle rustling near Sheldon was not unusual for Southwest Missouri, where strong cattle prices have increased cow country hijinks.

"That trailer was recovered in Cedar County," Peckman said Wednesday. "This type of incident is quite common. The rustlers steal a trailer in one county and go steal cattle someplace else. This is a person who knows cattle and has handled them.

"He will dump them in a pasture, fatten them up and let things cool down for awhile or go to a sale or a sale barn a couple of hundred miles away in Oklahoma and get rid of them. These guys know what they're doing and their overhead is not very high compared to what the ranchers have already got invested."

In the Internet age, Peckman said, rustlers can find a map of your ranch and drive by to check if your gates are open. "We stop trucks and trailers to ask questions and see if they've got the right paperwork," he said.

"If they look suspicious, we get in touch with the livestock and farm equipment task force of the Missouri State Highway Patrol to see if we have any matches."

While state law treats rustling seriously by making animal-related offenses a Class A felony, punishable by a minimum of 10 years' imprisonment, Missouri falls well short of most other cattle states by not registering its brands, said the sheriff, who raises cattle near Richards.

"You can brand them, but you don't have to have brands in Missouri like they do in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana," he said. "We have one of the top five cow-calf industries in the nation, so it would be nice if we had brand inspectors and brands or tattoos to identify the animals.

"We've talked about it at Missouri Cattlemen's Association meetings in Columbia. Missouri ought to get something done."

Peckman said most rustling takes place at night, although a daytime rustler "can be in and out of the pasture in a heartbeat" and look legitimate to most passers-by. "People need to get their neighbors to watch what's going on up and down the road and get the license tag numbers and call 9-1-1 if they see a suspicious vehicle so we can get somebody headed that way," he said.

"Cattle prices are up there. Lightweight calves bringing $1.80 a pound will make it more tempting for some of these guys to get out there and steal cattle."