BY DARROW KIRKPATRICK
Volunteer
New Mexico Wild

A little over 40 miles as the crow flies from Valles Caldera, high in the Carson National Forest, lie sparkling Canjilon Lakes. I was there for a night in mid-July and found a disturbing scene: a public campground and fragile lakes, set aside for people to enjoy, grazed down and fouled by cattle. In the distance, the remains of a fence that once kept them out.

A Carson National Forest spokesperson told me that the “campground is not part of the [cattle] allotment but is within the allotment’s boundaries.” So the cows should not be there. Fence maintenance “falls under the responsibility of the Carson National Forest,” they said. That maintenance is often shared, with the government providing materials and the rancher providing labor. But apparently no money has been available on the government’s side for years. The spokesperson said that the Forest Service is now “collaborating with the permittees [ranchers] on fence design,” with implementation “planned for as early as next fiscal year.” We can only hope the fence is restored before the cattle do irreparable damage.

I retired to New Mexico in 2013 after a career in small business. I know what it’s like to run on narrow margins while dealing with government red tape. I’m also a lifelong outdoorsman. As a Boy Scout at Philmont near Cimarron in 1974, I fell in love with the Rocky Mountains. Returning nearly 50 years later, hiking through delicate alpine meadows in the Pecos Wilderness, I was shocked at the damage from a few dozen head of cattle. I joined a volunteer team from New Mexico Wild to monitor trespass cattle in Valles Caldera National Preserve, hoping to protect what’s left of our wildlands.

The Caldera is a relative success story in cattle control. Two letters in this paper — from Tom Ribe of Caldera Action and rancher Carlos Salazar — argued about who was at fault. But neither made clear that the cattle counts were sharply reduced, or why. On my three monitoring trips so far this season, I saw no cattle in areas that, according to New Mexico Wild, held hundreds in previous seasons.

In earlier years, volunteers found polluted streams, depleted grasslands, and trampled underbrush. Then government agencies invested in the boundary fence. Wranglers were paid to round up cattle. Ranchers were notified and came to pick up their animals. The number of trespass cattle fell, and the Preserve began to recover.

According to the Preserve’s superintendent, the Forest Service spent $1 million rebuilding fences along its boundaries with the Caldera and partnered with Rio Grande Return, which reports adding nine miles of fencing in the 2024 season. And $350,000 of Park Service money since 2019 paid for six miles of wildlife-friendly fence, rebuilt by partners including the Pueblo of Santa Clara and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. Money was also found to begin a virtual fence pilot program — GPS collars that keep cattle in place without physical fencing.

Why was the fence, built back when the land was a private ranch, in such sad shape to start? Ribe says ranchers cut the wire; Salazar says bikers and hunters did. But conservation volunteers found the fence failing from tree falls, lack of maintenance, and some vandalism.

This is a rugged 51-mile boundary where treefall is pervasive. The Preserve’s own superintendent has said a wire fence can be easily defeated by a $5 pair of wire cutters or a falling tree, and that keeping up with it can feel like a Sisyphean task. No doubt there are isolated instances of vandalism. But most of the fence damage was likely from deadfall and deferred maintenance, not malice on anyone’s part.

Salazar cites the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. However one interprets it, that treaty does not help us much with who should repair a downed fence in 2026. That requires communication, cooperation, and goodwill within current laws. That happened in the Caldera, on both sides. Organizations built and repaired fencing, and nearly two dozen ranchers pulled their cattle out.

In the Caldera, money was essential to fixing the problem. At Canjilon Lakes, where funding has been absent, the problem festers while the landscape and the public pay the price.

Grazing fees are set low, and the small share that comes back for infrastructure improvements doesn’t go far across western rangeland. So the public absorbs the difference in fence repair, wrangler contracts, litigation, and stream restoration. Ranchers pay too — decades of labor maintaining federal infrastructure they will never own. It’s a government failure that pits two sides against each other.

The Legacy Restoration Fund paid for exactly this kind of neglected infrastructure on both Forest Service and Park Service land. It expired last year. Renewal bills, including the America the Beautiful Act, cleared committee in both chambers in June and await floor votes. Senator Martin Heinrich helped write the Senate version; Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández sits on the committee that moved the House bill. This is their terrain, geographically and politically.

Both bills require the agencies to publish which projects get funded. Boundary fencing at recreation sites in the Santa Fe and Carson national forests belongs on those lists.

We should insist that specific fence maintenance obligations be written into grazing permits, identifying the boundary segments by mileage and naming the responsible parties. Permits without such language should not be reissued on the assumption that somebody will handle it.

This doesn’t fix all the grazing issues in the Southwest, by a long shot. A fence does not resolve whether there are too many cattle on fragile high country. But better fence maintenance is a start to reducing conflicts, and maybe one we can agree on.

Salazar wrote “it remains a concern whether the fence maintenance will continue to be an issue moving forward into the future.” We can all agree with those words. We should also agree on reauthorizing the Legacy Restoration Fund, allocating some of it to boundary fencing, and being clear about maintenance obligations going forward.

Letters to the editor represent the opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or editorial stance of the Los Alamos Reporter. The Reporter assumes no responsibility or liability for the factual accuracy of statements made by contributors.