Local experts and law enforcement are encouraging Karnes County ranchers to maintain and check their fencing as more cattle escape onto the roadways each day.

Officials at the sheriff’s department estimate they get between 30 and 40 calls a month related to loose cattle on or very near a roadway, and so far this year cattle-related vehicular accidents have claimed four lives, injured one person, and totaled two vehicles.

Most of the breakouts have been attributed to cattle trying to graze beyond their fence line.

"I think most of it has been due to the drought," Karnes County Extension Agent Dennis Hale said. "We’ve got some rain and the grass started greening up both inside the pasture and of course in the bar ditches. A lot of that in the pasture got grazed down very quickly. Where else is the grass? If you’ve ever driven down a county road and watched, those cows will stick their heads through that barbed-wire fence and they’ll stretch out and try to get that grass."

A thousand-pound cow leaning up against a barbed-wire fence can put a pretty good strain on the wire. As that animal reaches out further and further, the entire section of fence can give way.

Once it does, that animal can get out onto the side of a roadway and usually will not have the brains to figure out how it got there or how it’s going to get back in. That’s when it becomes a danger to humans.

Sheriff deputies are on call daily trying to eliminate the threat, according to Chief Deputy A. C. Alonzo. The county has not issued a citation to any ranchers for having loose cattle during the time Alonzo has been there, but since he and Sheriff David Jalufka started the job January 2005, they have been impounding animals.

"We have had repeat offenders, but about the third or fourth time, we pick the animal up. It’s like impounding a car. Two young guys come out with a trailer and (the animals) are taken to the auction barn in either Kenedy or Karnes City," Alonzo explained.

Usually an officer will try to make contact with the animal owner to see if the problem can be taken care of. If the owner can’t be reached, the animal isn’t cooperating, or the problem has been recurring, it can be taken away.

Alonzo said the sheriff’s department isn’t quite ready to start handing out citations to every rancher whose animals put a hoof out of line, though.

"We’re in cattle country," Alonzo said. "People here have animals. You try to write everybody up, nobody would get by," he said. "So what you try to do is get the (frequent problem-makers). If the guy’s cows are out four or five times a day … we don’t put up with that. Mostly everybody is responsible. They want their animals pinned in, but you must maintain your fences."

Hale agreed.

"Short term, (local ranchers) really need to double check their perimeter fences," Hale said. "The other thing they need to do is to start getting the brush out of those fence lines. Brush growing up in fences just tears them all up. We’re going to address that on our fall tour because brush does so much damage to fence lines."

Hale also advised ranchers to keep supplementing their cattle some, despite greening pastures.

Some producers have taken to mowing sections of tempting grass along a fence line adjacent to a roadway.

"Long term, now this’ll make some people mad; don’t overstock your pastures," Hale advised. "Sooner or later you’re going to run short of grass and sooner or later they’re going to try and get through the fences."

One animal unit per five to eight acres of improved pasture is about the right number, according to Hale. Native pastures require giving cows even more space at one animal unit per 12 acres.

The sheriff’s department has about two to three animals, usually cattle, rounded up per month. They’re kept at auction barns at either Karnes City or Kenedy while their owners are located, and the owner must pay a varying fee to get the animal back.

The county also runs advertisements in the classified section of the newspaper regarding animals they’ve impounded. If the owner does not come forward, the county has the right to sell the animal at auction to cover their expenses.

A family of four was killed west of Kenedy on State Highway 73 June 17 when their car hit a tractor trailer head on after trying avoid a cow in the highway.

A few months later, A Nixon man was sent to the hospital October 2 after he survived a head-on vehicle collision with a cow.

In both incidents, a cow had moved from its pasture directly into oncoming traffic during a time of poor visibility and low light.