OPINION: Idaho’s open-range law deserves some open rage

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Ominous music could have been the prelude to the ensuing drama, except the action was not a scripted production. In retrospect, the stage was being set when I moved to a remote, high-desert community with a “360” of public lands.

Ranching, recreation and timber framed the economy with sufficient businesses for basic needs. Eighty miles away was the county seat and more choices, but any major service required a long shopping list and a three-hour drive to the Big City. My vintage home was on the second turn of a horse racing “flat track.” My “neigh-”bors were the thoroughbreds and quarter horses of a small racing stable, and I became friends with Dianne, the co-owner and jockey.

After her daily training laps, we would often enjoy vigorous desert rides that doubled as conditioning for my endurance horses. Occasionally, we would volunteer to help ranchers with roundups. This was open-range country — a monarchy of cattle.

On a winter morning, I climbed into the warm cab of Dianne’s new Ford truck as she was taking a horse to the Big City equine hospital. Companionable conversation shortened the miles. The horse was left for treatment, and we used the empty trailer to stock up on supplies before turning the Ford’s horsepower toward home. Snowflakes began seriously congregating, necessitating a stop at a convenience store so Dianne could call her husband.

Returning to the truck, Dianne asked if my seat belt was buckled. It wasn’t, so I clicked in. “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The headlights barely penetrated the whiteout as wiper blades slashed at the windshield snow. Center and fog lines were obliterated. The truck was in a low-gear crawl. Landmarks were obscured until the smudged outline of a bridge spanning a dry “wash.”

On a black-and-white night, a black-and-white cow stood immobile on the bridge. The impact momentum jackknifed the truck and trailer, flipping the vehicles over the concrete abutment into a slow-motion free fall. There must have been a jolt and the noise of mangled metal, but my next awareness was a contorted upside down view of the cab smashed level with the dash.

Releasing our seat belts, we crawled through the shattered windows and stood in the stark quiet of snow and shock, staring at the consequence of an open-range cow on a public road. As the driver, Dianne was liable for the cow — without the benefit of a steak or pot roast. A $300 cow caused $20,000 of wreckage, plus towing costs, insurance headaches, inconvenience and a nightmare experience.

Fortunately, hospital care and funeral expenses weren’t on the tab.

The notion of open range gained a hoofhold in the mid-1800s with the perception of endless Western land for livestock proliferation and profit. Before designated public and private land, before the swell of settlers and motorized vehicles, the practice of open range became an undocumented precedent. Ironically, it was a group of conservation-minded ranchers and farmers that requested congressional action to stop overgrazing and soil degradation. The resultant 1934 Taylor Grazing Act established fenced herd districts, but the idea faltered with inadequate funding and became fodder for the new Bureau of Land Management.

Idaho enshrined its open range law in 1961. Idaho Code 15-2118 defines open range as “all uninclosed (sic) lands outside cities ... and herd districts upon which cattle ... are permitted to roam.” Further, no livestock owner has the duty to keep animals off any highway and is not liable for any damage. Conversely, the owner of a vehicle in an animal collision is responsible for livestock reimbursement. Any property owner within open range must bear the expense of “legal” fencing to block trespassing animals including cattle, horses, mules, burros, sheep, goats, llamas, pigs and chickens.

Most Western states have similar, archaic laws — all equally egregious. Open range protects livestock investments at the expense of common sense. Taxes pay for the construction and maintenance of public roads. For the “safety” of motorists, potholes are filled, snow and rocks are removed, speed limits are established, guardrails are installed, orange barricades are erected around hazardous areas and yet the biggest, least predictable danger is ignored. Open-range livestock hinder the movement of traffic, and cause accidents, property damage and the degradation of asphalt, soil, water and plants.

In 2000, with the forecast of lawsuits, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that open-range livestock owners were liable for the costs of animal-vehicle collisions. That was quickly nullified by the hats in the Montana Legislature.

On a November night in 2015, a compact car collided with an Angus bull on U.S. Highway 95 north of Council, Idaho. The car’s occupants were extricated and transported by air with severe injuries. The bull was disabled.

The notified rancher arrived, angry and armed. In a fury of words and weapons, the rancher was shot and killed by law enforcement. Who paid the price for this ugly, avoidable multivictim tragedy on a very public right of way?

Open-range “laws” have created a travesty of our freedom to use communal roads without fear of a bovine encounter. Open range is the leftover swill of a mythical West. Instead of “cow”-towing to open range beneficiaries, there should be open rage by taxpayers, property owners and motorists.

This is 2025, and Idaho’s antiquated open-range laws should be put out to pasture — or mercifully gutted.

Dumas, of Grangeville, is an independent outdoorswoman.