To most cattlemen, livestock look vastly different than wildlife, beer cans and road signs. However, apparently cattle are just as good for target practice, or at least that's what you might think after seeing how many carcasses are riddled with buckshot and birdshot. Too often, the ever-critical consumer is the one that discovers the problem, and then the beef industry has lost a customer for life.

Conservative estimates equate the 0.30 percent incidence rate identified in the 1999 National Market Cow and Bull Quality Audit to 15,000 separate incidences each year. This costs around $100,000 per incidence, or $1.5 billion, according to NCBA.

This problem is leading meat processors and manufacturers to look for beef from sources not likely to have the problem -- markets outside the U.S.

"I'm going off-shore to buy product in high-risk situations where I know the incidence is less likely to occur," says John Butts, Vice President of Research for a sizable maker of sliced lunchmeats and food ingredients.

"Industrial food ingredient users and fast food restaurants are really becoming concerned about this since September 11," he says. "How will consumers in the 'new world' react to foreign objects? If a person found buckshot in one of our products, would they be likely to call the police or even the FBI? Could shooting animals intentionally or accidentally be labeled a terrorist act?"

"We find the problem more often in bulls than cows, and more often in cows and bulls than in steers and heifers," says Dr. Gary Smith of Colorado State University's Meat Science Center. "But we are finding the problem in fed steers and heifers, too."

In order to protect the safety and quality of meat, some packers use metal detectors to find broken needles and buckshot. However, they are little help if the shot is imbedded too deeply in the muscle or fat tissue.

According to NCBA statistics, when you look across the board, losses add up to about $105,000 from a 16-cent shotgun shell. This includes losses from such things as line stoppages and product disposal at the packing plant, lost production and returned product at the processor level, and increased cost and product loss at the retailer.

The only way to make lasting change is at the producer level, where the problem starts.

"We always thought it was the hunters," says Merton Haynes, Director of Technical Services for a national food ingredient manufacturer. But after looking into the problem, Haynes discovered how some cattlemen employ shotguns as a way to steer cattle out of thick brush or as a way to gather unruly bulls.

With this in mind, NCBA has launched a campaign, "Shot up and Shot Down," aimed at educating cattlemen in ways to reduce the incidence of buckshot in beef.

"The only way to make lasting change is at the producer level where the problem starts," says NCBA. "Ranchers need to leave the shotguns at home. And cattlemen who allow hunters on their place need to take responsibility for what those hunters do," the program urges.

"You have to think further down stream," says Ran Smith, DVM, Chairman of NCBA's Beef Quality Assurance Advisory Board. "Every pound of beef produced by every farmer and rancher affects the livelihood of every other producer." ©