Texas buffalo killings spark range law questions

The slaughter of dozens of buffalo amid an apparent spat between neighboring ranches in northwest Texas has reopened a long unresolved debate about what ranchers legally can do when somebody else's animals roam onto their property. Wayne Kirk recalled the horrific scene in January when more than 50 of his buffalo were found shot to death on a nearby ranch. Some of them had been "caped," meaning their hides were removed. "Babies, pregnant mamas, bulls, everything," said Kirk, owner of the 14,964-acre QB Ranch. "It was terrible, pitiful. It looked like a death zone." The then-foreman at the adjacent Niblo Ranch was charged with criminal mischief for the killings, and both ranches filed lawsuits. The farming and ranching partnership that leases Niblo was the first to sue, contending QB's bison had become a "public nuisance." The animals improperly roamed freely and interfered with Niblo's ranching operations by destroying fencing, eating wheat crops and livestock feed and mingling with its cattle, threatening those animals with crossbreeding and disease, its lawsuit said. In a countersuit, QB Ranch accused its neighbor of negligence and of being responsible for the animal slaughter, seeking damages equal to the value or replacement cost of the lost buffalo. While ranchers across Texas closely followed the legal dispute, figuring it could set some precedent, the two sides largely resolved their differences out of court. A judge ordered QB to keep its remaining herd penned, and QB eventually dropped its lawsuit. So almost a year after the shootings in King County, where only some 300 residents over 913 square miles make it the nation's third least-populous county, little has changed. Still unresolved is whether an animal native to Texas — the bison — can be protected when it wanders away from its home ranch and whether range laws that protect cattle and other livestock also should apply to bison...more