Who Are Those Guys?

According to a recent story from AP, a pilot flying over remote Malheur County, Oregon, caught a rare glimpse of part of a gang of five or six men thought to be responsible for the theft of approximately "1,240 cattle worth $1.2 million over the last three years from Malheur County ranches." Another 500 in Nevada are missing, plus more in Owyhee County, Idaho. The pilot observed two proficient horsemen driving roughly 125 cows across the empty landscape. The riders seemed to purposely not look up as the plane buzzed them. They just kept riding and finally the plane veered off. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't bother to report the sighting for a week. That sighting was last spring, and none have occurred since, though the rustling continues. It's a cliché to say that cattle rustling is as old as the West, but it is. Probably related to the weak economy, rustling cases in Texas alone have almost tripled in one year, from roughly 2,400 in 2007 to 6,400 in 2008. The country is as tough as Deputy Wroten's opinion of the rustlers. It's about 25,000 square miles of mostly Bureau of Land Management (BLM) federal holdings leased for grazing to ranchers in Southeastern Oregon, Southwestern Idaho, and Northern Nevada...read more