Keep your pets restrained
Even if they’re buffalo.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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March 24th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Had a similar incident in South Park here in Colorado a couple of years ago. Led to criminal charges against the trespassed land owner and/or shooters if I recall, as well as a civil suit.
March 24th, 2010 at 11:23 am
You can get a real lesson in the NPR mindset in those comments. You have to hand it to them, they sure have their audience targeted. Were Confederates Republican?
One wonders if the world’s largest bison entrepreneur might have been reached for comment, or would that be a CNN exclusive?
Juries may soon deliberate on the play habits of deer and antelope. No discouraging words–or seldom.
March 24th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
The issue is that one needs 30-60 ACRES of range in the West to fatten ONE steer. This is ~1500-3000 acres of your land that is being used by your neighbor for free. This wasn’t the first or the fifth time these animals had been out and it can take days to round all of them up. If your livelihood is being affected by someone, and you have tried other avenues, this fixes the problem.
BTW the rancher who shot the buffalo could claim he thought they had Brucellosis, which is endemic in buffalo herds.
March 24th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Phenicks is correct. In some areas of west Texas the cattle have to run at full speed from one clump of grass to another just to keep from starving to death. Many people seeing this think they are watching a stampede, but it’s just dinner time.
Seriously, Phenicks is correct. Everything the bison ate is something the rancher’s commercial herd could not. The loss of that much acreage could be devastating to a dry land ranch in the West. When a problem like this happens once, everybody does the neighborly thing. When it happens continuously and no action by the owner to correct it, then harsher measures are called for.
Our old blind neighbor of 50 years ago, accidentally loaded up one of my grandfather’s calves and sold it at the auction with a bunch of his. He discovered what he had done when they were run through the ring. He met my grandfather and confessed to “cattle rustling”, there was some joking about hanging, etc. and then it was decided that the neighbor would pay for the purloined steer and his inividual weight would be guesstimated. It was further discussed that that steer would not have been mixed in with Mr. Crawford’s unless he had wandered onto his place. So, they each agreed that from the monies from the sale of the calf would be deducted a grazing fee estimated at three days since that was the last time any of us could swear we had seen the calf on our place. So Mr. Crawford kept $1.50 out of the money for the calf.
If this problem had been a continuous thing as it appears to be in the story here, neighborliness would have been out the window and much harsher steps would have been taken.
I wonder if the owner of the Bison offered to pay a grazing fee, or if he just thought it his due to confiscate his neighbors’ pastures and ranchhands labor. Somehow, I think the latter is more likely else the extreme measure of killing all 51 bison would not have been taken. Making it seem more likely is the bison owner’s reference of how many powerful friends he has in Texas government. That does tend to make me believe he is “too special” to live to the same cultural rules as his neighbors and that he believes they must bend to him.
March 24th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
When I worked on a ranch with Bison I was told:
– they are quite short-sighted, so they think anything approaching them is probably a threat, and they will react accordingly.
– to the buffalo, a fence is just a suggestion.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:39 am
My understanding is that a lot of ranchers would be raising Bison, but it is near impossible to fence them in. The cost of building Bison-proof fencing would be astronomical. Basically, you need a natural setting such as a valley that could be minimally modified to keep them from climbing out. Anything less is foolhardy, which is a shame, because the meat is supposed to be much better than beef. Plus, researchers have figured out that they are much better for the ecology than beef cattle. Oh, well, someone will figure out how to keep them from wandering, eventually.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I know of several places raising bison and none of them have much of a problem with them getting out.