Texas Buffalo Shooting Triggers Culture Clash

[depakid]

Source: NPR


The QB Ranch in West Texas. Owner Wayne Kirk says it is a "terrible injustice" that 51 of his buffaloes were shot when they wandered onto a neighboring ranch.
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In West Texas, the shooting of 51 buffaloes that had escaped from a hunting ranch is creating a Western-style controversy. The bison had gotten onto a neighboring ranch, and that ranch's foreman shot them over a period of two days. The foreman has been charged with criminal mischief. And even though he has admitted he shot the animals, his conviction is far from certain.

The QB Ranch is 20,000 acres of windswept West Texas plains, mesas and canyons owned by a Dallas oilman. After a series of harsh storms earlier this year, ranch foreman Edmund Cassillas went to check on his buffaloes. When he found them, there were quite a few missing. So, he drove the barbed wire fence, and sure enough he found a place where the bison had gone through the wire and wooden posts.

"When it rains it washes out the fence," Cassillas says. "We call them water gaps." So Cassillas called Jackie Doyle Hill, the foreman on the Niblo Ranch where the buffaloes had escaped to. It was a short conversation. "He told me there was no more buffalo on the place, and he hung up," Cassillas says.

Cassillas was worried, though. This was not the first time the QB buffaloes had gotten out. The next day Cassillas talked to Hill again, and the Niblo foreman said he had taken care of the buffaloes. Hill freely admits he shot the buffaloes — 51 of them. They'd repeatedly strayed onto his employer's ranch, and he'd had enough.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124890977&ps=cprs

[Scout]

1. sick fuck (not the OP) n/t

[Walk away]

2. It's a hunting ranch so these poor creatures where to be shot by...

someone anyway. Typical "men with guns" set up. It sounds like the shooter decided to have some free fun. Maybe he was jealous of the rich guys who fly in to shoot a bunch of fenced in animals.

It seems like a really good illustration of gun sport.

[Beavker]

3. Culture Clash?

Which one? The Hatfields and the McCoys? Both are toothless dumb fuck morons, both parties are disgusting and ever so prominent displays of Gods Creation on this planet. Bet these two fucks both are big time Anti Abortion supporters. Your experiment has failed God. "Take Care of the Problem" will ya?

Scum begets scum.

[Dappleganger]

4. Texans have their own sense of justice...

My father and his family is from east TX, so I know it well. They do whatever makes sense to them and pretty much don't care about the consequences.

[FarCenter]

5. QB Ranch web site

http://www.qbranchtx.com/

After the purchase of the QB the ranch was put into an extensive wildlife management program. We now have over four hundred game feeders that are stocked year round. Approximately 4,000 acres were put under high fence and stocked with the highest quality game and exotics including a large herd of elk with many great 6x6 or better bulls. A resident herd of buffalo and Watusi cattle roam freely over most of the ranch. The whitetail population is plentiful and virtually untouched making the QB one of the best whitetail hunting ranches in the state of Texas. The natural genetics on the ranch are tremendous, as this area of Texas continues to produce some of the state's largest whitetail taken each year.

The food sources, nutrition, habitat and genetics have all been improved, making the QB Ranch in King County, Texas, a ranch that will consistently offer each and every year a legitimate chance at taking a trophy animal as well as providing a great setting for an enjoyable outdoor adventure. The QB Ranch will continue to prepare and put forth all the necessary hard work and effort that it takes to provide you with the opportunity of a lifetime to take your trophy animal, have an exciting hunt, and provide an enjoyable stay with great food and even better hospitality.

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If you are going to stock your ranch with large game animals, you need a fence stout enough the keep the livestock in.

[Mopar151]

6. The buffalo aren't the feature game

They are there to stomp Coyote and poachers - just my opinion. And they may be raised for meat as well.

[sonias]

7. Jackie Doyle Hill is a horrible human being besides being a bad neighbor

He knew who the buffaloes belonged to. He couldn't try to work with his neighbor to come and get the animals? No - asshole that he is, he'd rather kill them. I hope the bad karma he generated from killing the animals comes back and bites him. :grr:

Welch says local opinion about shooting the bison runs the gamut from, "They should have picked up the phone and said come get your buffalo," to, "If they'd of kept getting on my property, I'd of shot them too."

"Well, I think that different people do feel different ways," Welch says. "I would say the general thought has been shoot one or two. But to shoot 51, that seems excessive."

I just read through the whole NPR story, I see that the buffalo were being raised to be killed on the ranch, so now I think Wayne Kirk the owner of the QB Ranch is also a horrible human being and a bad neighbor.

A plague on both their houses! :puke:

[Aristus]

8. How could somebody be so cruel? So callous and insensitive?

Guns are for PEOPLE!

:sarcasm:

[kjackson227]

9. When I heard this on NPR yesterday, I literally got sick to my stomach...

how anyone could be so heartless and shoot so many of God's creatures like that is beyond me. There are some really sick people out there, and the one who did this is one of them.

[Jack_DeLeon]

10. If my neighbors animals were damaging my property I would probably shoot them too..

that being said when you are talking about that many and the kinds of animals it probably would have been more lucrative to sue the buffalo owner for damages.

[mbperrin]

12. What damage? All the land is the area is typical "ranch" land -

exactly what awful damage could be done by the buffalo (or by the dropping of several atomic bombs on the place?)

And I live in west Texas and have lived here all my life, love it, not going anywhere, but DAMAGE the land? Please.

[MicaelS]

11. Hill and the owners of the Niblo ranch probably thought

Wayne Kirk was a Communist for raising bison instead of cattle. I remember savage opposition arguments by cattlemen decades ago that if bison were introduced into Texas, they would spread brucellosis, and devastate the domestic livestock industry.

See this Yellowstone article about bison about the "threat" of brucellosis. http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/current-bison-management-questions-brucellosis.htm

[timo]

13. wasnt the first time

when a neighbor wont fix the problem and it occurs over and over again it gets to be a real pain in the ass.
we had a neighbor who had cows in an overgrazed pasture and he never fed them, they would always break thru the fence and eat the milo and corn we raised on the field across the road, time and again we had called the county animal warden to haul them off, he would pay a small fee to get his cows back and they would do it again and again and again, ending up eating several acres of crops over a 2 year period, after the first one got shot he all the sudden got the picture and fixed his fence, and started feeding his scrawny ass cows!!

51 buffalo can eat a whole lot of browse in just a short time, and in west Texas it takes alot of land to support a cow calf pair. its easy as pie to judge the foreman when you dont know the whole story, Texas range laws may vary county to county I am not sure, buffalo are big animals and a standard five strand barb wire fence isnt going to deter them from going where they want to go, and it doesnt sound as tho the ranches were fenced with game proof fencing, 8 to 10 foot tall woven wire fencing designed to keep deer and other exotic animals from leaving the ranch, game proof fencing isnt normally done with wooden posts, but metal t posts. altho i have seen it done with wood, its not the norm. here is a link from the cattlemans assoc. regarding fence and law. if the buffalo got out and caused an accident on a road depending on the size of the road the owners would be liable. I know it is very difficult for most folks to understand, if you havent been there you wouldnt get it. http://www.thecattlemanmagazine.com/issues/2004/0404/openRange.asp

[Schema Thing]

14. maybe a courtesy call?