Long before the Farmer and the Cowman decided they should be friends, cattle roamed the wild West as freely as had the buffalo before them. Of course, the buffalo, which fed, clothed and housed the Plains Indians, were killed to make way for those cattle.
In the 21st Century, cattle barons are no less powerful. In fact, they may be more powerful, because many of them are Republican lawmakers. One example is Snowflake, Arizona's Jake Flake. And, yes, the town is named after his family. (It was founded by a Mormon land agent, William Flake. The town is still heavily Mormon.) Jake is the legislator most recently infamous for trying to pass legislation making it illegal for the state legislature to pass agricultural or ranching legislation.
I used to live in Snowflake, so I know something about this cattle problem. When my partner and I bought our property there, we were warned that, in Arizona, cows have free range rights by law. Well, of course, cows cannot legally have "rights." We humans reserve such things only for other humans. Well, and corporations. But the ranchers have the right to allow their cattle to go anywhere and do anything...as long as you haven't put up a fence, and as long as that fence isn't broken.
When we were staying in the old trailer on the property, many's the time we were awakened by a cow rubbing against it, presumably to scratch an itch though we never really knew what her motivation was. But let me tell you, when twelve hundred pounds of hamburger leans against a trailer, anyone inside knows it. The cows also used to engage in noisy sex at all hours of the night (something which, at the time, was forbidden to my partner and me by Arizona state law, though that injustice, at least, had since been repealed). Their bovine cries of passion could be heard for miles across the otherwise silent chaparral, sounding more like the collective rape of the Sabine women than anything that might be fun. Let me put it this way: Michael and I were never tempted to join in.
Finally, life in the trailer--with no electricity, water, or gas--became too trying and we moved into a more civilized house, closer to the road, and surrounded by a privacy fence. In other words, barbed wire. We had three dogs, just puppies then, who loved whenever a cow came near because that gave them an excuse to bark themselves silly. Occasionally, coyotes or strange dogs would come onto the property and the dogs would defend us vigorously. But only once did a cow wander in through an open gate, and she gave no more than a mild glance at the furiously yapping dogs. We had to feint at her with the car, blowing the horn, before she sullenly returned to the road and her herd of friends.
But we certainly heard from our neighbors some of the horror stories of what a herd of cattle can do. Besides the obvious--eating the contents of one's garden--the clumsy creatures have been known to crush porches, knock down clotheslines, and even injure homeowners who try to evict them. The privacy fences are a legal necessity. Unfortunately, in wild country where you may not be able to see all your property at once, there's no practical way the fence can be monitored...something Jake Flake knows well, since he's on record as saying (in regards to a Mexico/Arizona border fence),
"I find that if you put a bunch of steers in a pasture and run out of feed, there isn't a fence good enough to hold them."
The problem, of course, is that free-range cattle in Snowflake aren't given any feed. They're expected to forage from the sparse patches of wild grasses and nutrient-poor juniper trees. The cows all look hungry, which I suppose is where all that Extra-Lean Hamburger at the grocery store comes from. But the other problem is that some of those cows come equipped with wirecutters. A fence that's been trampled down is clearly the work of hungry cows. But barbed wire that's been cleanly cut suggests the existence of an accomplice. And if we do what we've been told since 2001 we should do--follow the money--well, that trail leads pretty solidly to the ranchers, doesn't it?
Kent Knudsen, one of our former neighbors (we moved; he didn't) has lived in Snowflake on the same forty acres for the past 25 years. He has a privacy fence, as do his adjacent neighbors. He also had, until recently, an elderly mother with Alzheimer's he was caring for at home. As Kent puts it:
When mom and I returned home from three days in the hospital, we found our property
overrun with a herd of over 30 wild cattle. When the rancher was informed that his cattle were
trespassing on our fenced property and causing a serious threat, I was told that he could not
remove them until the next day. Since my mom, who had Alzheimer's Disease, often wandered
outside, I knew that I must remove the cattle myself. While dealing with this threat, a cow was
unintentionally killed. I informed the rancher and he said he would come and talk with me
about it, but instead, the next day officials from the Navajo County Sheriff and AZ Dept. of
Agriculture showed up and immediately arrested and handcuffed me (in front of my ailing
mom) solely on the word of the rancher, without even looking for a dead cow or determining
the cause.
Kent spent a day in jail and over $30,000 in legal fees trying to straighten the mess up. He tried to settle out of court--by paying for the dead cow, for example--but was told the state wanted to "make an example" out of him. The first trial was thrown out because the judge insisted on selecting the jury, without allowing potential jurors to answer questions posed by Kent's attorney. In a second trial, according to Kent,
The judge denied all our defenses and my lawyers were powerless to prevent this. It was
stated that AZ is an open range state, but that no details about open range law would be allowed into the trial. All the prosecution lies were accepted, no matter how blatant, and very little was done to refute even the obvious ones.
Kent was found guilty and now awaits sentencing on September 25th, which could result in his spending up to 1 1/2 years in prison!
The rancher involved, Dee Johnson, happens to be Jake Flake's cousin. Well, practically everyone in Snowflake is a cousin to "Jake the Flake" as he is known locally. Kent reports that Dee has actually been arrested and convicted sixty times for cattle rustling. Why he isn't in jail isn't clear. What is clear is that something funny is going on.
I am hoping that some combination of pressure from the ACLU and public awareness of this case might minimize Kent's sentence. If you wish to assist, please send a letter stating your position to both Kent and Kent's lawyer:
Kent Knudson
1030 W Maryland Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85013
cowcrap@cox.net
cowcrap.org
602-246-4299
Ron Wood (Attorney)
PO Box 969
Show Low, AZ 85901
crimedog@citlink.net
928-537-5799
If enough people become aware of this situation and say something about it, it's possible that the state's wish to "make an example" of Kent might backfire. Because, let's face it, when 600 ranchers are given rights denied to the 6,000,000 non-ranching citizens of Arizona, when people are caged so that hamburger can roam free, something is seriously amiss.