News you can use

Park board asked to revisit cattle fencing policy

LaSalle: Policy is out of date, actions not neighborly

A local rancher said the Hill County Park Board needs to revisit its policy about the fence around Beaver Creek Park and needs to work with ranchers to fix the fences and to get cattle out of — or back on — the park to where they are supposed to be.

“I know what your fence policy is, and, frankly, it’s out of date. It doesn’t work,” Leon LaSalle, president of the Rocky Boy Cattlemen’s Association and a director of the board of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, said during Monday’s Hill County Park Board meeting in the Hill County Courthouse.

LaSalle said he was a little shocked about the reaction when some cattle got onto the park before the grazing season started.

He said he heard in August that some cattle had crossed the fence from Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation into the park.

“My phone rang off the hook,” he said “I thought it was a national emergency, holy cow. But cows are going to get across the fence.”

LaSalle said Rocky Boy ranchers eventually found and returned the cattle to where they were supposed to be, but he heard later that someone had suggested at the board’s August meeting that the board could impound cattle that are illegally on the park.

He said when cattle cross from the park to the reservation, the Rocky Boy ranchers don’t try to impound the livestock, which they could.

“But it’s a neighborly deal,” LaSalle said. “When cattle get across the fence, we help each other. We put them back and fix the fence. What was going on here, I didn’t feel was very neighborly. It wasn’t really how neighbors treat each other.”

He and Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar said they worked together to find where the fence was down and fixed it. But, LaSalle said, there is a problem with the park fencing policy.

The park board pays the ranchers $150 to fix a mile of fence — which LaSalle said is not nearly enough.

“Have you seen the price of a steel post?” he asked.

Montana is an open range state, including on the park, which means the property owners are responsible for ensuring a legal fence will keep cattle where they are supposed to be, LaSalle said.

It also follows the right-hand rule — when the property owners stand at the middle of the fence, facing their neighbor’s property, the fence to the owners’ right is their responsibility to maintain, he said.

If the board will not increase the payment to ranchers to fix the fence, which might provide more incentive to keep them maintained, it needs to go to the right-hand rule, he said.

“Everybody’s got to check their half of the fence … ,” LaSalle said. “You fix your half, we fix our half.”

Edgar said, if he and the ranchers at Rocky Boy continue to work together as they did last month, the problem will disappear. He had been fixing the entire fence between Rocky Boy and the park for years, he said.

“If we can work together on fixing the fence, this situation is over,” he said.

Mariani applauded LaSalle and Edgar working together to solve the problem, and added that the discussion in August was primarily about another cattle owner whose livestock had gotten on the park, not the Rocky Boy cattle.

But LaSalle again said the board needs to look at its fence policy.

“Chad and I worked this deal out already, but I just wanted you to know there’s some other issues,” he said.

 
 

Reader Comments(3)

because writes:

The cattle are on the park to graze it down and benefits everyone, the rancher, the park dwellers and the land. It keeps the park from becoming overgrown and a fire hazard.

why writes:

well if it's a park, then why the cows, is it a park or a range unit, if you don't have enough land for your cows and need to keep them in a park then get rid of some of your cows.

Stuart Smith writes:

If the fence is fixed right and in good shape it shoud not take $150 a mile each year to fix unless there is a disaster!!!

 
 
 
Rendered 02/23/2024 17:00