The Arizona Court of Appeals has weighed in on a topic that's older than the state itself: cattle brands.

Thank you for bringing attention to the shortage of food animal veterinarians in Arizona in your article on March 10. This is an important issue that Midwestern University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Glendale is working to address.

Traditional veterinary medicine for large food animals in rural Arizona has all but vanished, leaving the state’s livestock industry increasingly vulnerable to disease and even death.

Livestock will again be able to use the San Juan River now that Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye says the river is safe again.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has vetoed a bill that would have created a separate set of animal cruelty laws for livestock and poultry than animals owned as pets.

The removal of a controversial provision didn’t go far enough to bring critics of a livestock cruelty bill on board, but the House of Representatives still narrowly passed the legislation.

Loretta and Raymond Morris have ranched the same 5,500 acres in northwestern New Mexico for more than 40 years, but their time there might be cut shorter than they hoped.

Hidden behind buildings and a school playground along busy Highway 180 in Flagstaff is one of the few remaining historic barns in Arizona. If the walls could talk, they would tell of the ranching life in the 1880s and the quick rise and fall of its probable builders, the Arizona Cattle Company.