THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503210109
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LORI A. DENNEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
One morning last October, Julie Witham walked out to the barn to feed her 12-year-old gelding, Cruise Control, and found the horse missing.
When she looked around, Witham discovered a gap in the fence where someone had apparently broken in and stolen her pet. Thus began a three-month search that ended on a North Carolina farm where Cruise Control was kept, 500 pounds lighter.
Witham was lucky. With determination, countless telephone calls and a crucial notice in the Atlantic Horse Trader, a trade publication, Witham found her animal. But with advanced identification techniques now available, Witham might have found her horse sooner.
``You never think it's (theft) going to happen to you,'' said Witham, during a recent horse theft prevention seminar at Sterling Meadows Farms. ``I just never imagined.''
Witham doesn't like to think about what can happen to a stolen horse. Often, it ends up in a butchering line. Horse meat isn't a delicacy here, but in many foreign countries, such as Holland and parts of Europe, huge quantities of the meat are imported from the United States.
To ensure their horses are protected, owners are turning to new approaches on an old technique: the brand. Today, animals can be branded by either a hot or cold brand or an electronic transponder, which can be implanted underneath the mane. The electronic marker allows the horse to be easily identified at auctions and meat packing plants that have the technology to identify the device.
Witham's struggle is the kind of scenario that Amelita J. Donald and others at the International Equine Recovery Network, based in Fort Worth, Texas, hope to avoid.
Donald, along with several members of the Virginia Beach Mounted Patrol, a lawyer and a veterinarian, recently addressed about 75 people at the horse theft prevention seminar, which was sponsored by the Tidewater Horse Council and the Virginia Beach 4-H club.
Among the choices for marking an animal, most horse lovers and the recovery network praise freeze branding as the least painful and longest lasting. Donald encouraged horse owners to come up with a brand, or even use a generic one, to mark the horse on an obvious part of its body, like the hip, jaw or shoulder.
Freeze branding is one of the most humane and painless ways to brand an animal, Donald said.
Electronic transponders are also highly effective. Painlessly implanted in the horse's middle neck, below the mane, it can be read by a radio frequency scanner from either side of the horse.
The rice-sized transponders do not have USDA approval and, more often than not, horses aren't scanned to find any identification, Donald said.
With every method of ID, including tattooing, there's a risk of someone altering the design. Often, with G2VBHORSE Donald lip tattooing, within a year or two, the tattoo is barely visible. Because meat packing employees are instructed for safety reasons not to open a horse's mouth, chances are slim that a stolen horse would be found.
Aside from marked identification, Donald also suggests that horse owners photograph their horses, with a solid background, to show their coloring or any other marks.
For $10 a year per horse, owners can register their horses with the International Equine Recovery Network where the horse's description, from color to height to name, are kept on file. Registered horses are required to have an identifying brand or transponder.
When Donald gets a call from a frantic owner and a member of the network, she immediately broadcasts a fax, describing every detail about the missing horse, to law enforcement agencies, slaughter houses and auctions throughout the country.
The network also has published a handbook, ``The Equine Recovery Handbook,'' which instructs owners what to do if a horse is missing, as well as emergency phone numbers and a contact in every state.
Donald said the network assisted in 1,458 horse theft crimes in 1993. Of those, only eight percent were recovered and only two of those had identification markings.
Aside from discussing identification, Donald offered tips on preventing horse theft, such as marking property with ``no trespassing'' signs, sheltering horses in a locked barn, and being sure land boundaries are protected by fences.
``Time is essential,'' said Donald, who started the recovery network four years ago after two of her own horses were stolen. ``There's a 24-hour window that is extremely important.''
Donald cites the case of two South Carolina horses that were stolen and, within 24 hours, one had been transported to Canada and the other to Kentucky.
``If you believe you'll find the horse, you will,'' Donald said. ``Don't give up.''
Not giving up is the one thing Julie Witham did right. She spent three days searching the area for Cruise Control's hoof prints. She even hired a plane to scour the area.
After three months and countless phone calls, Witham found her horse. A man had been approached by another outside an auction barn about buying the horse for $1,800.
That was three days after Witham reported the horse stolen, which in Virginia Beach, is considered grand larceny. The man collected a $3,000 reward from Witham for returning the horse.
Today, Cruise Control is back in his barn and Witham plans to have the horse branded. MEMO: To receive ``The Equine Recovery Handbook,'' call the International
Equine Recovery Network at 1-800-842-8725. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by PETER D. SUNDBERG
Joe Hoffenberger prepares to brand a horse with the cold-iron
method, which uses nitrogen.
by CNB