Marking Time : Brand Inspector Fills Hours as Biologist While the Cattle Ranchers’ Calls Mosey In

Ventura County’s cattle-ranching industry is so sleepy that the county’s brand inspector has received only four calls in two months.

It’s so slow, in fact, that the inspector, Dewey Runkle, doubles as Ventura County’s senior agricultural biologist and spends most of his time working with produce, pesticides and quarantines.

But Runkle says things will pick up in the summer and fall, when ranchers begin shipping their calves to market.

It is then that he will travel out to the ranches of Simi Valley and Santa Paula with his state-issued brand book to inspect the cattle. He looks at the seared marks on their hips and legs, checks their sex and makes sure the Herefords aren’t listed as Black Anguses on the sale papers.

Protection for Ranchers

State law calls for a brand inspection each time a cow changes hands. This is meant to protect ranchers from cattle rustlers, but Runkle says it’s mainly a formality, since rustlers are about as common as blacksmiths in Ventura County these days.

Back when 70,000 head of cattle grazed on Ventura County’s hills and pastures, rustlers did roam the territory, however, and the state Department of Food and Agriculture Livestock Identification Branch served the ranchers in a Simi Valley office.

But the industry has dwindled to about 16,500 head in the last 30 years, and, until two months ago, the Simi Valley office had been closed more than 20 years. As a result, ranchers say, they sometimes waited up to five days for inspectors to arrive from Chino or San Bernardino--the two nearest state livestock offices.

Runkle stepped in as the county’s brand inspector when the Ventura County Board of Supervisors agreed that hiring a local inspector would cut travel costs for the state as well as delays for Ventura County’s ranchers.

The new inspector comes from a long line of cattlemen. His family raised cattle in Ventura County for four generations until financial hardship and encroaching development forced it to sell out in 1973.

Today, Runkle works out of a small office in Simi Valley’s county building and says he can usually provide same-day service if he gets a brand inspection request in the morning.

But so far, he acknowledges, “It’s pretty slow.�