A Glendo, Wyoming, ranch is offering a $5,000 reward for information about nine missing cattle and has called for a meeting of area ranchers and law enforcement discuss what he says may be a more widespread problem.
“There were nine this year that were unaccounted for and five last year,” rancher Tim Millikin said.
Millikin filed a report with the Platte County Sheriff’s Office on the nine missing this fall and was told the information was put into the National Crime Information Center database.
Millikin said this is the first time his herd has come up short.
Six or seven years ago, he said three pregnant heifers came up missing and he never found any carcasses or trace of the animals. He said he has heard from neighbors and friends that they are also missing cattle.
Over the past few years, he estimates about 18 or 20 cattle are unaccounted for.
The Platte County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return a call for comment on the missing cattle.
Millikin and his wife, Lisa, have helped organize the meeting at 6 p.m. at the Glendo Town Hall on Nov. 20 with locals, law enforcement officers and representatives of the Wyoming Livestock Board.
The Millikins said they suspect cattle is being rustled around the region, but don’t have hard evidence. What they do know is that theirs and other herds keep coming up short.
Millikin’s 8,000-acre ranch runs about 450 head of cattle, and he said when moving them to their different pastures over the summer, it’s difficult to get an accurate count. Sometimes cattle are hiding in a hole or under the shade in the woods.
Nine Missing
But as he prepared to ship his yearlings, he was missing nine head. Searches on their ranch that included aerial observation did not turn up any evidence of the missing cattle. There also are no dead carcasses or remnants of cattle that would reveal predation.
While for now he has no proof, Millikin believes it could be someone from the area who taking advantage of the region’s ranchers to make “a pretty good living.”
“I think it is probably somebody who is savvy about livestock,” he said. “If they are smart, they will steal a smaller number that may go unnoticed until months later.”
Someone with a livestock trailer or covered trailer who knows where the loading pens are and when a family may be at church or watching their kids at a ball game could just show up with a few border collies, put 50 cows in corner and load a few of them, Millikin said.
The Millikins want the Platte County Sheriff’s Office, Converse County Sheriff’s Office and Wyoming Livestock Board law enforcement to weigh in.
“We're just gonna get everybody aware and talk about what to do,” Millikin said. “Kind of start a neighborhood watch kind of deal where we can get everybody aware what's going on.
“If you can get people watching, maybe we can catch somebody, and maybe we can get them we keep their heads down, you know, I don't know.”
Millikin said he is working with the Wyoming Livestock Board’s investigator and the Platte County Sheriff’s Office on his losses.
Board: 45 To 60 Reports Each Year
Wyoming Livestock Board Director Steve True said his senior investigators have been part of planning the meeting. He said the board averages about 45 to 60 reports of missing cattle each year.
“I’m certain that’s not near all of them,” he said. “A lot of them are not reported.”
Often those reports turn into found cattle, either by a brand inspector or by the ranchers themselves who locate them a few days after filing a report, he said.
But rustling cattle does happen, and True said with prices high right now, it provides an opportunity for those whose “incomes are depressed” to resort to thievery.
“One piece of theft that I don’t think gets broadcast enough is just butchering,” True said. “Somebody sees one on the side of the road, nobody’s around, and they get themselves a hind quarter and take off. We find hides, feet and heads scattered around.”
Converse County Sheriff Clint Becker said his office plans to be at the meeting. He said he had not had a lot of reports about missing cattle in his county lately and encourages ranchers in his community to report losses.
He said his office works closely with the region’s brand inspector when cattle are unaccounted for.
“We pull over vehicles to make sure that they have brand papers or they're not hauling any illegal livestock,” he said. “I try to encourage the ranchers, the livestock owners, to call in and report stuff if it's missing, and then if they find them, to just, you know, let us know.”
Spring And Fall Opportunities
Typically, the spring and fall are the times when cattle or sheep come up missing, True said.
Fresh unbranded babies laying alongside a fence line in the spring make easy marks for thieves to take. The fall also provides thieves opportunity because ranchers may be too busy cutting corn, finishing hay and multi-tasking to notice cattle thefts.
This past spring, a pair of ranches near Wright reported 115 sheep stolen.
Millikin said one scenario he believes is possible is that thieves take cattle to eastern Nebraska outside of the brand zone and just sell them at a livestock sale. In that region, they would not have to prove ownership.
Brand inspector Zane Morris of Wheatland, who covers Platte County, said he was unaware of the Millikins’ meeting. He said he does his best to ensure that Wyoming laws regarding shipment and sale of cattle are followed.
“We are at every shipment where there is a change of ownership or where they cross the county line,” he said. “So, we check the brands to verify ownership.”
Morris said when cattle are bought and a brand is put over another brand, sale papers need to be produced by the person or ranch holding the cattle.
True said the Wyoming Livestock Board has specific funds it uses to try and generate more law enforcement presence in the more rural areas of the state where ranchers may be more susceptible to cattle or sheep rustling. A memorandum of understanding with 12 counties across the state allows off-duty deputies to get overtime paid by the stock board when they patrol the more rural spaces of their counties
“Our sheriff’s offices are stretched pretty thin, and it’s pretty hard to get very far out in the sticks these days,” True said. “So, this is an opportunity to take guys who want to go the extra mile for the livestock industry to get out there and do that.”
Millikin hopes the meeting later this month generates awareness about the issue which hits ranchers like him in the pocketbook. Those nine yearlings he is missing would generate about $2,000 each.
“So yeah, it’s not chump change,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
