Officials are investigating the disappearance of 180 cattle after several ranchers along the Western Slope reporting them missing.
The multicolored cattle, mostly calves, were last seen grazing on national forest land along Uncompahgre Plateau, southwest of Montrose, before their owners reported them missing, Sgt. Chuck Searcy with the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
“When they bring them down off the mountain for winter, that’s when they start counting them and going through,” Searcy said.
Whether cattle thieves are to blame is unknown. The sheriff’s office is in the beginning stages of its investigation and working to determine if a person or group of people is responsible for the heifers’ disappearance. The Uncompahgre Plateau sits at an average of 9,500 feet in elevation and covers 1.5 million acres, or more than 2,300 square miles.
Searcy declined to release more information on the cattle, including the brands, “to protect the victims” in the case, until the sheriff’s office gathered more details.
The missing cattle carry a hefty price tag.
“We’re looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. It all pertains to their weight,” Searcy said. “It’s not short of a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cattle.”
The sheriff’s office began investigating after meeting with ranchers and members of the Colorado Brand Board on Dec. 4, Searcy said.
“I’ve been here for a while and I can’t think of when this many cattle have been missing or stolen,” he said.
Anyone with information about missing cattle or suspicious activity can contact the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office at 970-249-9110.
“Our county depends on the agriculture in this area,” Searcy said. “We’re going to investigate this like we do anything else.”