Fact vs. fiction: What Montana livestock investigators actually do, beyond 'Yellowstone'

<p dir="ltr">Snow-dusted peaks towered in the background, cows lowed in the expansive rangeland and cowboys on horseback moved heifers and steers off trailers.</p> <p dir="ltr">There wasn&rsquo;t a film camera in sight, but it sure looked, sounded and felt like a scene straight out of the hit television show "Yellowstone.&rdquo;</p> <p dir="ltr">And Wes Seward certainly looked the part donning his black cowboy hat and worn-in cowboy boots, with a gun holstered on his hip.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">But Seward isn&rsquo;t an actor pretending he&rsquo;s an agent of the show&rsquo;s fictional Montana Livestock Association. He is a district livestock investigator for the very real Montana Department of Livestock, a state agency with a history that reaches back to before the state&rsquo;s formation and a mandate to ensure law and order within the state&rsquo;s expansive ranching industry.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">"Yellowstone" hasn&rsquo;t just borrowed from Seward&rsquo;s reality, though.</p> <p dir="ltr">It has changed it, bringing in more people, more animals, more money and more pressure on livestock producers who already face long days and long odds to make a living and to keep Montana&rsquo;s ranching tradition alive.</p> <p dir="ltr">With me today is Ted McDermott a reporter with Lee Enterprises&rsquo; Public Service Journalism who recently reported on the world of livestock police and the effects of the TV show on life in Montana.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>