Thank you to Mark Hinschberger, a Member of the ULWSA, for providing this article to answer this FAQ! Mark is a retired wildlife biologist who spent 32 years with the USDA Forest Service.
The short answer is that any cattle that show up in our subdivision are likely from the Diamond D Land and Cattle Company. If cattle appear on your property, you should call the ranch manager at (307) 450-3012.
The long answer is below, but it begins with the fact that both the landowners in the subdivision and the livestock owner(s) share some responsibility.
We are fortunate to be surrounded by millions of acres of mountains, forests, and wildlife as part of our landscape, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons we all chose this great place to live. What comes with that beauty and access, however, is the seasonal arrival of cattle that are permitted to graze on the Shoshone National Forest adjacent to our subdivision and adjacent ranch land. Wyoming and most of the other Western States are "fence out" states for cattle, meaning that landowners who prefer not to have livestock on their property are responsible for fencing them out.
The Union Pass Cattle and Horse Allotment on the National Forest is a large allotment, some of which borders our subdivision on its West and South sides. This large
allotment has several permittees who are permitted to graze their cattle on the allotment. The permittee who grazes immediately next to the Upper Little Warm Springs
Subdivision is the Diamond D Land and Cattle Company (the new owners of the Warm River Ranch). Now, in the recent past, if property owners in the subdivision had
contacted the ranch manager of the Warm River Ranch, he had been very responsive to removing cattle at his earliest convenience and fixing the fence he found in need of
repair. Fixing the fence will no longer be the responsibility of the livestock owner unless their cattle were responsible for breaking or damaging a lawful fence that was engineered and built to keep cattle from going through it. Per Federal Law, responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the fence is on the owners of lots whose property boundaries border the National Forest.
The federal government does not have to fence between federal lands and private property in "fence out" states in the west; in these states, the responsibility falls on private landowners to fence their property to keep livestock off, meaning they must fence against federal lands if they want to exclude grazing animals from their property, not the other way around.
If you own property that borders the Warm River Ranch, now owned by the Diamond D Land and Cattle Company north of the subdivision, although it is legally your responsibility to fence out, in the State of Wyoming, there is an existing State Statute that requires property owners with a shared common boundary fence between their properties to share equally in their cost to construct, repair and maintain.
A requirement in the annual operating plan for utilizing one’s grazing permit on the National Forest is to do all of your required maintenance of improvements inside the grazing allotment, which includes fencing and the repair of it, before their on-date (the time they are allowed to put their livestock on the Forest). Barring some necessary delay because of range-readiness issues, the on-date for this grazing allotment is June 26. Therefore, the permittees, likely the ranch managers, will need to ride, drive, or walk all allotment boundaries (between adjacent allotments on the Forest) and division fence lines between pastures within the allotment to make the necessary repairs before they can place their permitted cattle on the allotment. They are not required to do any maintenance of the fences that private landowners own on their private lands adjacent to the National Forests.
So, if all the landowners adjacent to the National Forest have checked and maintained their property fences, why are cattle still getting into the subdivision, you ask? Some landowners have not checked or maintained their property fences, resulting in long stretches of unmaintained fencing. Several other factors also influence this, including time, environment, people, and the cattle themselves. It is sufficient to say that repair and maintenance are ongoing necessities when it comes to fences.
We, as neighbors to this section of National Forest, however do have a responsibility to make sure that if there are gates in the fence (like the one at the end of Spruce Creek Court) they are closed at all times; that the gate at the Wild Cat road entrance to the Forest at the end of Soda Springs Road is not left open by recreationists during the time cattle are supposed to be on the Forest; that the cattle guard at the top of Geyser Creek Connection is not filled in with dirt. The landowners that border the Forest Boundary and the Warm River Ranch property can help by occasionally examining the fence along their property boundaries to see if a tree has fallen on and broken the fence, cattle have broken the fence, if a gate is open, elk have knocked down a section of fence, or any other reason the fence is not functioning and make the needed fence repairs yourselves or notify the cow boss, Corey Northup (450-3012) if you believe that a good, lawful fence was damaged by their cows or to come and remove their cows from the subdivision.
The cattle are scheduled to be off the Union Pass C&H Allotment as of September 30. In reality, gathering cattle on allotments this size with multiple permittees takes several days or weeks to get all the cattle off and home. So be patient.
If you have questions about wildlife-friendly fences, a new third edition of "A Wyoming Landowner’s Handbook to Fences & Wildlife" is now available. You can pick up a printed copy at your local Wyoming Game and Fish Department office, or click here to download the PDF version of "A Wyoming Landowner's Handbook to Fences & Wildlife.
DISCLAIMER: This article is not intended as legal advice--it is just meant as helpful advice, neighbor to neighbor. For advice on relevant Wyoming law, please contact a Wyoming-licensed attorney.