Noseprint IDs To Be A Thing Of The Past
OHIO - Ohio State Fair planning switch to eye-scan system, making experts obsolete
10 August 2007
1 minute read
Phil Endres put on his glasses, grabbed a pen and looked closely at the black print on a small piece of paper.
Thousands of times he's made an identification using prints. But these weren't fingerprints.
Endres and his partner Jeff Henry were looking at noseprints from steers at the Ohio State Fair yesterday. They were making sure no one tried to enter a steer that they hadn't raised in 4-H or FFA.
Endres, who has more than 30 years experience reading fingerprints, and Henry, a sergeant with the Columbus Police Division, have been checking cattle noseprints since 1984.
But technology soon will make their role obsolete.
The Ohio State Fair purchased an optical (eye) scan system that will be used next year to identify sheep. The fair likely will use both the optical scan and noseprints on steers next year before abandoning ink and paper for good in 2009.
"This is sort of the old way of doing things," said Endres, who retired as a fingerprint examiner from the Police Division in 2002. (He now works in The Dispatch's business office.) "The technology is really coming in here."
With the purchase, the fair becomes the first state fair in the nation to have the necessary equipment to optically scan all animals, fair General Manager Virgil Strickler said.
