From The Oregonian  Friday, November 26, 2004

Wire fences roll up as cattle leave wild Steens   by RICHARD COCKLE

Sixteen miles of barbed wire and fence posts have already been pulled out,
with the rest to be cleared over five years

BURNS -- Lee McConnell rode his saddle horse past a juniper tree and up an 
old trail in Little Blitzen Gorge, a steep, narrow crack in Steens Mountain
that until a few weeks ago was carved up by barbed wire fence.

"You can't believe the change in the way it looks without that fence," the
federal range rider said.

When the wire and metal posts came down, the terrain in this part of the new
Steens Mountain Wilderness seemed to change almost magically from lazy
grazing land to the sort of untouched high desert that was here before the
arrival of the white pioneers, McConnell said.

He was making an end-of-season inventory of cattle fences that the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management still must remove from the sprawling wilderness, a
project expected to take another five years.

It was a bright, chilly afternoon earlier this month as McConnell nudged his
horse, Ruby Jane, through the bunch grass, squirreltail and fescue under the
snow-covered 9,733-foot summit of Steens Mountain, the improbable
glacier-cut escarpment in the midst of the desert.

The Steens has been cattle country for at least a century, and 1,700 head
plus calves grazed on this western face of the mountain for decades. But
that era ended when Congress created the wilderness four years ago.

Lawmakers declared that 97,229 acres of rangeland in the 170,080-acre
wilderness would close to livestock. They gave ranchers and the Bureau of
Land Management until fall 2003 to find a new home for the cattle.

So this past summer, McConnell, BLM wilderness specialist John Neeling and
groups of volunteers dismantled 16 miles of fence from the cattle-free
areas. They'll have to pack out the fence posts and rolls of wire on
horseback next spring.

At least 65 miles of barbed wire and steel posts remain, some of them 15
miles from the nearest road. Under terms of the act, cattle will continue to
graze on about 70,000 acres of the wilderness.

Despite decades of grazing, the potential is high for most traces of human
use to disappear from the cattle-free area, Neeling said. "This will revert
back to a natural state," he said.

That probably will mean more natural vegetation but little change in grass
types, said Mark Armstrong, a BLM spokesman in Burns. Natural wildfires also
may be allowed to play a larger role in the new wilderness at some point,
and that could slow the spread of juniper -- a species that sucks much of
the scarce moisture from the ground -- and provide room for more grasses, he
said.

Most of the fences now being torn out were built in the 1940s and 1950s,
McConnell said. Before that, fences were rare on the Steens and buckaroos
"cowboyed" cattle on horseback, he said.

Removing the fences poses challenges. The metal posts can be difficult to
jerk out of rocky ground, and the wire is razor-sharp. The work is being
done by volunteers from the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Wilderness
Volunteers and Sierra Club, among others.

A 45-pound machine -- invented and built by wilderness outfitter John Witzel
of Frenchglen -- rolls up the fence, McConnell said. The device can be
carried like a backpack or loaded on a horse or mule.

The BLM will continue maintaining cattle fences along the 112-mile boundary
of the wilderness, this time to keep cattle out instead of in, he said. Some
of the boundary remains unfenced and depends on rimrock, steep slopes and
other natural obstructions to prevent entry.

McConnell, a nine-year rider who roams the region for the BLM, passionately
believes grazing should continue on the public lands, but he has never cared
much for fences.

More than 100 years ago, his grandfather worked on the XIT Ranch in Texas
and watched barbed wire cut up the West's uninterrupted vistas, a
circumstance he described as a tragedy, McConnell said.

The old cowboy probably would enjoy watching his grandson take out these
fences, he said.

"I've seen the circle," McConnell said. "My grandfather was part of it
coming in, and I'm a part of it coming out."

Richard Cockle: 541-963-8890; rcockle@ucinet.com