Legal Affairs

March|April 2004

BRANDING

LAST YEAR'S MAD COW SCARE prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to roll out an ambitious new plan to tag and track the nation's cattle with electronic ear clips. When the plan goes into effect, it's likely to make American livestock safer. It's also the latest technique to threaten the practice of cattle branding, a tracking system first used in Egypt some 4,000 years ago and a mainstay of the American West for more than a century.

In 1864, in one of its first acts, Montana's Territorial Legislature passed a law requiring ranchers to register their cattle brands with local authorities. Brand inspectors, who rooted out cattle thieves, tracked down stray steers, and kept the peace in the stockyards, had become the de facto law of the range by the time Paul Manis (above) joined their ranks in 1949. Today's brand inspectors work in pickup trucks, not on horseback, but their task remains the same: documenting the sale and slaughter of cattle.

Manis, like the inspectors who came before him, memorized the scores of intricate symbols used by Montana's ranchers and learned to spot a rustler's counterfeiting. But as electronic ear tags ease the need for old-fashioned, iron-seared symbols, cattle brands will once again become hieroglyphics.

—THE EDITORS



					March\|April 2004 BRANDING LAST YEAR'S MAD COW SCARE prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to roll out an ambitious new plan to tag and track the nation's cattle with electronic ear clips. When the plan goes into effect, it's likely to make American livestock safer. It's also the latest technique to threaten the practice of cattle branding, a tracking system first used in Egypt some 4,000 years ago and a mainstay of the American West for more than a century. In 1864, in one of its first acts, Montana's Territorial Legislature passed a law requiring ranchers to register their cattle brands with local authorities. Brand inspectors, who rooted out cattle thieves, tracked down stray steers, and kept the peace in the stockyards, had become the de facto law of the range by the time Paul Manis (above) joined their ranks in 1949. Today's brand inspectors work in pickup trucks, not on horseback, but their task remains the same: documenting the sale and slaughter of cattle. Manis, like the inspectors who came before him, memorized the scores of intricate symbols used by Montana's ranchers and learned to spot a rustler's counterfeiting. But as electronic ear tags ease the need for old-fashioned, iron-seared symbols, cattle brands will once again become hieroglyphics. —THE EDITORS