Tired of the noise, traffic and crime in the city? You could heed the TV commercials and buy your 40 acres of solitude in Arizona ranch country.

Just be careful what you step in.

You’re likely to be on open range, where cows roam free because ranchers don’t have to fence them in. You have to fence them out. That’s the law of Arizona and most of the West.

Kent Knudson doesn’t like it and he took steps to change it. He shot a neighboring rancher’s cow to death when it wandered onto his property near Snowflake.

But any change in the law is likely to come slowly from the courts or the Legislature. Meanwhile, about 1.3 million of the 6.3 million deeded acres in northern Arizona have been subdivided since 1975 and more is being carved into “ranchettes” every day, according to C.B. “Doc” Lane, natural resources director for the Arizona Cattle Growers Association.

Faced with rising costs, drought, uncertain beef prices and pressure for open space and environmental protection, ranchers will keep selling sections of their private land to developers, Mr. Lane says.

Even after the ranchers sell, they lease back and continue to graze the land in order to provide an “agriculture exemption” and property-tax break of up to 95 per cent to the developer as he parcels out the land and re-sells to new residents.

New property buyers set up mobile homes, drill wells and plant their gardens.

Cows graze in the flowerbeds and die from bullets fired in anger.

“It’s just pitiful to watch,” Mr. Lane said. “As they find their little slice of heaven, they want to protect it, and I don’t blame them. But they’re saying, ‘Get those cows out of here.’”

Some are doing more than that.

“These people have been up in arms,” said Zeke Austin, special investigator for the Arizona Department of Agriculture. “The soul of the whole problem is developers with large areas of land, zoning it for grazing so they can get a big tax break.”

Mr. Austin arrested Mr. Knudson, 53, in January for killing rancher Dee Johnson’s cow, a felony in Arizona. Mr. Knudson could face more than two years in prison and a bill for three times the value of the cow. However, he dreams of victory on appeal.

“I’m looking for, not a lawyer, but a law student who hasn’t been corrupted yet, and wants to rise quickly by winning in the Supreme Court,” Mr. Knudson said. “This open-range law is absolutely unconstitutional. It’s only here because nobody has taken the time or money to oppose it.’’

Common Law of Grazing

The first American settlers brought the “common law of grazing” from England. Subjects had been allowed to graze their livestock on non-cultivated land of others within a manor. In the new world, Southern colonies outlawed fences except around arable land.

As the United States grew, open-range gave way to fences except in the West where ranchers couldn’t afford to fence all the square miles needed to graze their livestock. To protect your garden or cornfield on open range in Arizona and most Western states, you must put up a legal fence.

If you want to collect damages caused by wandering cattle, you will need “good and substantial posts firmly placed in the ground at intervals of not more than 30 feet” with at least four strands of barbed wire, tightly stretched and secured to the posts at 50, 38, 28 and 18 inches from the ground. And don’t forget the vertical stays every 7.5 feet to keep the wires from sagging.

Or you could cobble together a fence of tree branches and old tires. But you’d have to convince a judge that it’s strong enough to divert a cow.

Mr. Knudson has a substantial fence on his 40 acres called the Ranch of the Golden Horse, one of many developments in the Snowflake area that lease grazing rights to ranchers.

But Mr. Knudson does not like to close his gate.

“Dee Johnson lets his cattle wander everywhere,” Mr. Knudson said. “He expects me to cage myself in and be a prisoner. It’s not right.”

It’s also not right to shoot a cow, according to Arizona law. Property owners only are allowed to hold and slap a lien on invading livestock while suing for damages.

“Once before, the cattle got in there,” said Mr. Johnson, recalling a cordial relationship with Mr. Knudson’s mother, Elizabeth, before the January shooting. “His mother called me and we went in and took them out. We run cows where a lot of people live. We try to get along. Most people are easy to get along with.”

Mr. Austin agreed. “Then you have the one per cent who overgraze and run their livestock into other people’s backyards,” he said. Between them and the 1 per cent of neighboring property owners who go for their guns, you have one busy lawman.

“Over the last 15 years, I’ve had reports of 30 of these kinds of incidents,” Mr. Austin said. “About two a year.”

A half dozen of them involve Mr. Knudson and several of his Cedar Hills subdivision neighbors, who have been feuding with Mr. Johnson over his wandering cows for several years.

One of Mr. Johnson’s bulls was found dead near Cedar Hills Property Owners Association chairman Herb Mason’s home. Mr. Mason denied killing it but said, “he regularly practices his marksmanship in the general direction of the location of the dead bull,” Mr. Austin reported.

Cedar Hills Bible Church preacher Danny Fite was arrested for killing livestock. A companion said she watched as Mr. Fite fired several shots to herd wandering cows off his property.

Similar incidents have been reported everywhere cattle graze and residences develop in Arizona.

Homeowners near Globe were complaining of cattle damage when rancher Arthur Rivera found one of his cows dead with an arrow in its side. One of the neighbors bragged, “It won’t be back in my yard again. I finally got it. I heard the thump.”

Mr. Austin, who scores a conviction in about one of five cases, was unable to match the fatal arrow with any in the neighbor’s possession.

Despite these outbursts, Mr. Austin says the number of open-range killings by settlers does not seem to be increasing. “It hasn’t gotten worse, but it hasn’t gotten better,” he said.

Mr. Johnson has grown more optimistic as he has watched families move onto more and more 40-acre parcels over the past 20 years.

“To a certain extent, I think it’s gotten better,” he said. “I think now people know more about what they’re doing. At first, people were buying 40 acres in the middle of a working ranch.”

Open range becomes an issue in Navajo County only a couple times a year, Deputy County Attorney Lance Payette said, “generally when someone who just moved here from Alabama or Michigan calls to complain: ‘I can’t believe that’s the law in this insane state.’”

Mr. Payette said his own introduction to open-range law came several years ago in Coyote Springs near Prescott. “A bull scratching his hind end on the corner of my mobile home at midnight just about knocked the place off its foundation,” Mr. Payette said. He had to spend $4,000 on a fence.

No-Fence District

An alternative is to join your neighbors in forming a no-fence district, which requires ranchers to fence in their cattle instead of forcing settlers to fence them out.

“I’ve lived in Arizona for 53 years and never even seen a no-fence district,” Mr. Payette said, “although they presumably exist somewhere.”

Metropolitan Maricopa County has 62 of them, a
nd Kim Chmel of Rio Verde is determined to establish the 63rd. Upset by emaciated and injured horses wandering onto her property for food and water, she has gathered petition signatures of a majority of taxpayers in a large area on the northeast side of Scottsdale over the past two years.

“People are sick and tired,” Ms. Chmel said. “Just the manure alone. I clean up day after day, and you have 10 horses at a time. I stand there and watch them destroy my trees. I feel so bad for them, I just say, “Knock yourself out.’ ”

The area has produced more than 40 reports of animal cruelty, straying and neglect over the past few years — many traced back to one area rancher. A neighbor, Eric Hicks, shot two of the neighbor’s horses to death when they ate away his haystack until it fell on his daughter, breaking her leg, according to a State Agriculture Department report.

Rio Verde residents hope the mayhem will stop when county lawyers close the last of the loopholes, and Maricopa County Supervisors declare the no-fence district from 136th to 176th streets and Rio Verde Drive to Jomax Road.

Homeowners in Rio Rico Estates near Nogales have not been so fortunate. Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Maynard said cattle have wandered from the developer’s pasture into residential yards “a couple of hundred times over the past four or five years.”

Rio Rico Properties Inc. lawyer Dennis Getman says “there’s been a few, but nowhere near that many.”

The developer leases pasture to a rancher but “people knock down the fences,” Mr. Getman said. “Because it’s along the river, they cut the fences and knock them down to go picnicking and four-wheeling.”

Mr. Getman said he met late last year with Mr. Maynard and the rancher, who agreed to reduce his herd and patrol his fences. “I’m not aware of any problems since the meeting,” Mr. Getman said.

Supervisor Maynard said he has considered a no-fence district, but there are too many restrictions in state law.

Irrigation districts of 35,000 acres or more with water available may qualify.

Landowners with a total of 20,000 acres or more that is 75 per cent “successfully irrigated” also may apply for a no-fence district.

The same goes for owners of land totaling 1,000 acres or more that adjoins a city or town of 30,000 people. These districts must not extend more than 12 miles from the municipal boundary.

Rio Rico Estates may not qualify for a no-fence district, Mr. Maynard said. “I’ve contacted both of our state legislators,” he said. “I’ve reminded them that they represent the district and there are quite a few voters out there.”

Lawmakers Respond

Rep. Manny Alvarez, D-Dist. 25, said, “We will be having a town meeting sometime in July. I don’t think we can propose to change the open-range law. The only thing we can do is to change the population requirement (for a no-fence district).”

Rep. Jennifer Burns, R-Dist. 25, an attorney, said, “It’ll be something to look at next year. I will need to talk to people, get more information and have staff look at the laws.”

Mr. Getman said Rio Rico Properties Inc. already fences its grazing land, so a no-fence district would offer little improvement. But roaming cattle should become a crime, and residents no longer would have to erect their own fences in order to collect damages for their lost sweet corn and marigolds.

“We’ve never had open range per se,” Mr. Getman said. “For some reason, the cattle seem to ignore the fences. There has to be some sense of fair play here.”

Sen. Marsha Arzberger, D-Dist. 25, a rancher who represents much of southeast Arizona, asked, “What ever happened to the logical solution?”

“You can’t fence everything,” she said. “Who are you going to put the cost on? The cattle ranching was there first.”

Ms. Arzberger said neighbors “can get together and make a wire fence that doesn’t diminish their view. If you have a garden, you’ve got to fence it anyway. Something’s going to eat it.”

No legislation is needed to expand no-fence districts, she said.

Investigator Mr. Austin said the Legislature probably will not find a solution to the sometimes-violent clashes between settlers and ranchers anytime soon because “people from these areas are represented by ranchers.”

“I don’t see it changing,” Mr. Austin said. “The State Land Department (with eight million acres under grazing lease) is not going to require their lessees to fence.”

He said the Arizona Department of Real Estate could ask developers to help. “It would solve the problem if they were required to fence before they develop,” Mr. Austin said.

When asked about the clash of development and open range in Arizona, a State Real Estate Department spokeswoman referred questions to the state Agriculture Department.

“We have not received any complaints about licensees failing to disclose cattle or other livestock nearby a home site,” Liz Carrasco of the Real Estate Department said.

Original deeds routinely disclose open-range fencing requirements to “ranchette” buyers but this warning may be lost when the property is re-sold.

Even so, Ms. Arzberger said, “I rarely get a call on open range. It’s usually someone who moved in from back East. They don’t like cows. Of course, they don’t like javelina either.”

Too Close For Comfort

Mike Scott, a Kino Springs school teacher said he’s lived in the Nogales area for 25 years but still is not comfortable with roaming cattle — one in particular.

“It’s just a big, huge black bull,’’ said Mr. Scott, who has fenced his property. “He was out behind my house one night and all the dogs were going nuts.’’

Mr. Scott said he would call the owner but “I’d have to get close enough to see a brand. I’m not about to do that.”

“I understand we have open-range laws,” Mr. Scott said. “But there are children. If these animals are ranging around, someone could get hurt.”

The victim usually is the roving animal, even among the best of neighbors.

When one of Fred Vasquez’s hogs strayed onto neighbor Mark Martin’s place near Tonopah, Mr. Martin tried to run it off with a rifle shot. As a state investigator arrived, the pig was dead under a blanket in Mr. Martin’s driveway. Mr. Martin and Mr. Vasquez were discussing the incident.

“Vasquez said he wasn’t happy about the dead pig,” investigator Robert Payne wrote in his report. “But he said he had told Martin to shoot the pigs if they came over to his place and bothered him or his property.” —