New Tool for Livestock Owners

(Phoenix, AZ) Livestock owners now have a new tool to help them find their lost animals: the Internet. The site, www.azda.gov/lostfound is an effort to more quickly find the rightful home for horses, cattle, sheep, and other livestock and also make the public more aware of who to call when they find a stray animal. It's a new twist on the old practice of the Arizona Department of Agriculture (ADA) posting Ëœstray posters' on fence posts and feed stores in an effort to find the owner of a stray animal that has been picked up. The ADA will continue to post stray posters near the area where a stray was found, but in addition will post the information online. "We have been posting stray posters for years to try to locate a stray animal's owner," said Brad Cowan, Livestock Officer for the Arizona Department of Agriculture, "getting this information on the Internet to a broader audience will help more owners find their animals. If the ADA is unable to find the stray animal's rightful owner within two weeks the animal is sold at auction. This new tool will also allow people who have not lost any livestock to see what animals have been found and when they will go to auction in case they would like to purchase the animal at auction. The Arizona Department of Agriculture is the agency responsible for handling lost or stray livestock as well as theft, abuse, and other crimes related to livestock. For lost livestock, found livestock, or to report livestock abuse or other livestock related crimes please call the Livestock Hotline at 1-800-294-0305. Livestock include: cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, emus, ostriches, llamas, alpacas, bison, domestic deer, and domestic elk. This website, is an additional tool for owners to find their lost animals, but may not always be an exhaustive list of all lost or found animals at a given time.