If you noticed some of your irrigation parts were missing, or cattle have suspiciously disappeared from your herd, what would you do?

Call the local sheriff? Ask a neighbor for help, or confront another neighbor you suspected? Or would you plan revenge?

Unfortunately, there is no common answer to what has been growing to be a frustrating trend in rural areas across the West.

When the Oregon Livestock and Rural Crime Investigators Association held a training program recently at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, the people who attended heard some sobering facts.

Livestock thefts are happening daily. Brass sprinkler heads and copper wire, as well as aluminum irrigation pipe are constantly disappearing off farms.

Unfortunately, a lot of the crimes aren’t even reported because farmers and ranchers feel they will not be given high priority. Ranchers might also suspect that a neighbors did the crime and worry about the consequences if they report the crime officially or confront the suspects themselves. Other rural people might decide to take matters into their own hands, and sometimes that can be disastrous.

The crime rate has been growing throughout the West. For example, in California’s San Joaquin Valley, metal thefts increased from $1 million in 2001 to $6 million last year.

The reason for the increase is that the value of copper has increased 400 percent during that same time, to $3.50 per pound.

What might prove as an enticing way to make money, particularly for drug addicts, can be a considerable financial loss as well as inconvenience for farmers who must replace the stolen parts. That’s why in California, the Farm Bureau drafted a model ordinance to help local governments crack down on metal thieves, and for other farmers and their organizations who are working closely with law enforcement to fight the problem.

What else should be done to protect farmers and ranchers, and fight these crimes?

Investigators and rural landowners need to keep the communications lines open, to talk about the problems they see. And ranchers need to be careful to keep crime prevention in mind. They need to brand their animals, or use other forms of identification on their animals and possessions. Farmers also should be encouraged to report thefts that happen.

Working together, justice officials and landowners need to be able to build a strong paper trail when crime happens: Documents are needed to prove the case, and judges and juries need to be better educated to understand the documents, as well as different agricultural practices, and the impact of these thefts on rural communities.

An improvement would be to require dealers of recycled goods – especially of metal – to keep better records and be accountable in their transactions involving metal or other items commonly stolen.

Overall, communities need to work together to fight the crimes: They need to support each other and report any suspicious activities they see. Too often it’s tempting to not get involved because of fear, ignorance, disinterest, or that independent streak that is so admirable in many rural folk.

In this case, it will take getting involved to reverse the trend – and the losses.