wild horses (11. 836)

Via the New Shelton wet/dry, we learn that the US Bureau of Land Management is using freeze marking to brand and identify wild burros and mustang, in an indelible and painless (reportedly) procedure. The registry assigns captured animals a unique serial number and a small area on the neck just below the crest is shaved off, treated and then an iron dipped in liquid nitrogen is applied. The hair grows back white (the mechanism for producing pigment destroyed), making it easy to recognise the tagged individual, rendered in the International Alpha Angle System, a trichoglyph standard invented in the early 1970s for size, legibility and tamper proof nature with the rotating glyphs meant that fewer irons needed to be taken to the field. The cryogenic technique is used on a variety of livestock and by naturalists tracking animals as well.