Cattle

Have the climate wars of Africa begun? Tales of conflict emerging from this remote, arid region of Kenya have disturbing echoes of the lethal building blocks that turned Darfur into a killing ground in western Sudan. Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they've been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows. The aim, all sides say, is no longer just to steal land or cattle, but to drive the enemy away forever.

A fight is brewing over the practice of feeding chicken feces and other poultry farm waste to cattle. A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the practice. McDonald's Corp., the nation's largest restaurant user of beef, also wants the FDA to prohibit the feeding of so-called poultry litter to cattle. Members of the coalition are threatening to file a lawsuit or to push for federal legislation establishing such a ban if the FDA doesn't act to do so in the coming months.

Clifford P. Hansen, a cattle rancher who became Wyoming's governor and then served two terms as a U.S. senator, has died. He was 97. Hansen died at his home Tuesday after receiving hospital treatment for a broken pelvis. A Republican, he served as governor from 1963 to 1967, when he went to Washington after defeating Teno Roncalio, Wyoming's only congressman and a Democrat, in a bid for the Senate. Hansen sat on the Senate Finance and Veterans Affairs committees and was a ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Troy McKinney was sitting in his truck outside the Decatur Livestock Market when he got a call about four heifers gone missing from a ranch in Hunt County. He sighed, spit a wad of chewing tobacco into a Styrofoam cup, and took out a notebook and a pen. "How much did them heifers weigh?" he asked the rancher. "Any kind of markings on 'em? You got any suspects? You made anyone mad or anything lately?" News of another cattle theft was the last thing McKinney wanted to hear. The livestock theft investigator for several north Texas counties was already knee-deep in nine other cattle-rustling cases.

It's been years since anyone has seen the free-range cattle in Cheeseboro and Palo Camado canyons. But that doesn't mean they aren't there. About five years ago, park rangers with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area swore that cattle had escaped from a nearby ranch and were living free and wild in the popular hiking and mountain biking canyons near Agoura Hills. The rangers said the cattle had been free so long, they had turned feral, becoming wiry, wily and stealth-like.

A Wolf Point man was convicted of stealing 39 head of cattle in what appears to be the state's biggest cattle-rustling case in decades. Richard D. Holen was convicted of eight counts of felony theft -- one for each neighboring rancher he was accused of stealing from. Roosevelt County Atty. Ryan Rusche, who prosecuted the case, said it appeared to be the first large case of rustling in Montana since the early 1900s.

They look like hamsters on growth hormones, bark like dogs and swim as fast as otters -- all reasons why chiguiros, the world's largest rodents, are an object of unending fascination for zoologists and wildlife enthusiasts. But ranchers here in northeastern Colombia fail to see the attraction. They claim that the rodents, which stand knee-high to humans and weigh as much as 120 pounds, consume valuable pasture, foul drinking water and spook their horses and cows.

Smuggler's Gulch lived up to its infamous name. For a century, the narrow canyon leading into California from Mexico provided cover for cattle thieves and opium dealers, bandits and booze runners. More recently, it has hidden thousands of illegal immigrants on their journey north, sealing its place in border lore. Now, it's a fading memory.

Cattle-rustling is an age-old problem on Argentina's legendary Pampas plains, but genetic testing is helping police crack down on thieves. Argentina, one of the world's top beef exporters, is famous for its free-range beef from grass-fed cattle. Experts say lax controls and the sheer scale of some ranches make life easy for rustlers.