Free Republic

BURLEY -- The enormity of tagging and electronically tracking every animal in the United States hit home to livestock owner and 4-H Club leader Maria Brown recently when her Cassia County extension office informed her that 4-H steers in the county would be required to have radio frequency identification/electronic identification (RFID/EID) tags this year. Another surprise, she said, was when the extension office asked if she had registered her "premises" (farm,ranch,acreage) with the state. Brown's experience is what farm animal and poultry owners across the nation can come to expect in the next few years as the U.S. Department of...

Disaster relief crews are adopting radio frequency tags to help them identify victims in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) and health officials in Mississippi's Harrison County are currently implanting human cadavers with RFID chips from VeriChip in an effort to speed up the process of identifying victims and providing information to families. The County Medical Examiner's office in Lafayette County, Miss., also said it will stock RFID chips and scanners for future disaster relief. Louisiana will begin to use the system soon, which will help officials face the estimated 500 unidentified bodies...