gobsmacked.

I'm on a bit of a roll here with posts about Stupid Pet Laws.
OK, here's one for you - courtesy of threecollie at the excellent northview diary.

567 English cows (that's five hundred and sixty seven - enough to fill up a couple of stadiums. Over six hundred thousand pounds of cow - pound by pound equivalent to well over 3,000 people, living, breathing, perfectly healthy cattle, representing tons of perfectly good meat, milk and other cow by products, the sort of animals romanticised by 19th century painters) were slaughtered by a government agency at taxpayer expense.
Why?
Because their paperwork was incorrect.

Yes. The EU mandated paperwork kept by the farmer was not 100% consistent with the EU mandated ear tags.
So DEFRA slaughtered all his cattle and destroyed his livelihood (at taxpayers' expense, did I mention this part.)

Here's the news article.

My dogs are microchipped and licenced and have the legally required rabies vaccinations for my state and wear tags accordingly.

I know people who refuse to do this.
Maybe they're not so paranoid after all....