[MileHi]

I can't get too worked up about this whole deal, though as I doubt any of the players are long time "ranchers." Seems to me they are a bunch of city imports trying to redifine the old west.

Well, you would be wrong. Downare was raised on that ranch. His dad has been ranching there most of his life.

Years ago, it would have been a dead rancher instead of dead stock.

Hawn is lucky that wasn't the outcome, believe me.

[george76]

In Park County, how the animals died, and what happened to their corpses, caused some of the greatest outrage. The bison were shot and left to rot where they fell: Experts from the Colorado Department of Agri­cul­ture said they may have lain dead for more than three weeks.

Carcasses were found on two neighboring ranches but also on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property.

The problem for Hawn is that just because the bison were on his property does not mean he had any rights to them. Since the 1880s, Colorado has had open range ordinances, whereby livestock can roam freely and it’s up to landowners to fence them out.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A627445