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 who focus exclusively on rustling. 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 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.
Ranches increasingly are vulnerable to economic downturns, so losing even a fraction 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. Sometimes, the thieves kill cattle on site, shooting them or carving them with chain saws before carting away the meat. In one Idaho case, Hayhurst says, 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.