URBAN COW THIEVES AUTHORITIES SEEK CATTLE RUSTLED FROM HANSEN DAM.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Staff Writer

LAKE VIEW TERRACE - In the car-clogged suburban San Fernando Valley, an old breed of criminal has made a comeback: the cattle rustler.

On Tuesday, detectives investigated the theft of 60 head of cattle that thieves on horseback rounded up and stole from the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center in Lake View Terrace over the weekend.

``This is a first. This is stuff they do in Wyoming or Montana. This is a weird deal,'' said LAPD Detective Charles Uribe, who heads the burglary unit at Foothill Division.

Cattleman and equestrian center operator Eddie Milligan said that immediately after discovering the theft, he and his ranch hands found some 37 cattle scattered over the mountainside and the Big Tujunga Wash.

As of Tuesday, however, 20 of the cattle - worth $800 apiece - were still missing.

``There ain't no hide or hair of them,'' said Milligan.

He believes his young rodeo cattle were stolen sometime between 9 p.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday, perhaps while he was watching ``City Slickers,'' a movie about a group of urbanites who spend two weeks on a western cattle drive.

Milligan was awakened about 6 a.m. Sunday by a ranch worker who told him that four corrals had been emptied, and it wasn't just a case of escaped cattle.

``There has to be somebody rustling them,'' he said. ``They opened up their corrals and drove them out. Some of them had to be on horseback. They moved them several miles up the canyon.''

On Tuesday, Milligan sent about a dozen ranch workers on horseback to search the rugged hills and valleys. And he placed a $10,000 bounty on information leading to the arrest and conviction of the rustlers.

``This is grand theft and we're not fooling with it. We don't want it happening again,'' Milligan said.

Milligan, who has operated the ranch for a decade, said the crooked wranglers were highly organized and obviously experienced.

``Ever try to load up a bunch of wild cows? It ain't easy,'' Milligan said.

The cattle are used for special events and rodeos and eventually are marketed to the slaughterhouses, Milligan said.

The cattle each had red tags on their ears and some of them were branded, detectives said. They are each a couple years old and weigh about 800 pounds.

Detectives planned to show nearby residents photographs of cattle from the same herd. They also plan to call packinghouses that might have purchased the bovines.

The LAPD's cargo-theft unit was alerted to watch for cattle on big rigs traveling within California or state to state, said Detective George Morales of the Foothill Division.

Officer Julian Almaraz, who took the theft report, said many people own horses in that area, but cattle are more rare.

``People all know each other over there. Somebody may say something about somebody having new livestock,'' Almaraz said.

Almaraz said that before the owner rounded up the 37 cattle, officers were called out to Foothill Boulevard to herd them off the roadway about 4 a.m. Sunday.

``It was really a traffic hazard,'' he said.

Occasionally, a few horses get stolen in the more rural sections of the Northeast Valley, Almaraz said, but the number taken this time is high.

``Twenty steers - that's a lot of animals to take. They must have had a trailer on Foothill Boulevard,'' he said.

Anyone with information about the stolen cows is asked to contact Foothill detectives at [phone] during business hours or [phone] after hours.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo: (1 -- color -- ran P. 1) Eddie Milligan stands near some of the cattle he has recovered from nearby canyons. The cattle were rustled from pens at Hansen Dam.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

(2) Cowboys head out on the trails near the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center to look for cattle that were rustled on New Year's Eve. Of 60 cattle originally stolen, 20 are still missing. The center is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the rustlers.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Map: Hansen Dam Equestrian Center