Misleading

An email update from My Cattle.com showed up in my inbox today that had a really misleading teaser on it. It proposed that the national ID program would offer an overlooked benefit, protection against cattle theft. "One of the most basic incentives to have cattle permanently identified is theft."

On the surface there is no problem with that statement. True permanent ID, such as branding or tattooing, provides a lasting way to tell one cow from another.

However, the story's author added this pure BS statement that really got my dander up, "In the falderal (their spelling not mine) surrounding livestock ID and the tragicomedy that has become the National Animal Identification System, it's too easy to lose sight of one of the most basic incentives to have cattle permanently identified: theft."

Balderdash! NAIS is all about selling ear tags and keeping data bases on farm activities and has nothing to do with preventing theft in any way, shape or form.


Even though the author of the article never said in so many words that ear tags equal permanent ID comparable to brands or tattoos, that premise was strongly implied.


Sorry, tags in cows ears are about as permanent as drifting snowflakes in Florida. If they don't fall out or the cows don't rip them out, it is easy as pie for a thief to cut them out.

Such malarkey, it just kills me.

No NAIS noticed again

Remember this post?


Back in August, I thought it was a pretty big deal that Walter Jeffries' No NAIS.org was mentioned in Drovers Alert. Now the same website has been mentioned in this USA Today story.

I for one, am glad to see it. The very valid arguments against NAIS need mainstream attention and I am thankful to the hardworking farmers and ranchers ***who are getting it for us.

Even a state veterinarian, who is in favor of NAIS, admits that there are major flaws in how the program is set up today,

"As for arguments that the program is unconstitutional and a violation of privacy, "I can't counter that," Hoenig says. But he tells the farmers, "In an emergency, you're going to be coming to people like me for help. So give us the tools we need to do our job."


Giving them tools to do the job is all well and good, but they are asking for weapons of mass destruction when a BB gun would get the job done just fine.

***Update...upon further reading I realized that Sarpy Sam's No Mandatory Animal ID, which is linked with the word "rancher" above is also mentioned in the article. I didn't recognize it, as his url is different from the name of his site.