Nevada Focus: Ranchers worry about intruders during calving season

Thursday, March 11, 1999 | 5:16 a.m.

What would your reaction be to this intrusion? If you happen to be a cow, the first instinct might be to stampede, causing injury to the intruder, your newborn or yourself.

That scene of man vs. nature has been playing itself out with too much regularity, according to Tricia Settelmeyer, whose family ranch fronts three miles along Highway 395 in the central Carson Valley.

"What happened this weekend - and has been happening - is that a man crawled over our fence and came into the property where the calves where being born. The mother stampeded," Settelmeyer said Monday.

Her husband, Arnold Settelmeyer, witnessed the incident and asked the man to leave. Nobody was hurt, but Tricia Settelmeyer is concerned about the next time.

"Basically, this mother is a 1,500-pound animal, and you're separating it from its baby. Cows are big, huge, clumsy animals on small feet. If she starts to stampede and falls on her back and she's down for 30 minutes, she's dead," Settelmeyer said.

The number of uninvited guests to the Settelmeyer ranch and other properties along Highway 395 seems to be higher this year as people stop to witness the calving and the record number of bald eagles who feed on the afterbirth.

"More and more people coming into the area haven't been around ranches and farming," she said. "They have a lack of respect for personal property."

Settelmeyer said she's also been getting calls from people who think the Settelmeyers aren't caring for the newborn calves.

"My husband and all of the ranchers, I am sure, are so conscientious," she said. "He goes through the herd every three or four hours checking the herd. If it's cold and wet when they're born, he takes them into the barn."

After the mother gives birth, she cleans off the baby and goes off to graze.

"The mothers can identify their babies with their nose. The mothers free range graze and eat and go back to the calf when it calls. They can hear the baby from a mile away," she said.

Settelmeyer said if a predator eyes the calf, the whole herd goes on alert.

"Really, they are very self-sufficient," she said.

Settelmeyer said she doesn't want to keep people from enjoying the bucolic scene which her family's ranch has provided for generations, but the animals need to be protected.

"We have to have some kind of educational process for people coming into this area. There are certain things people can and cannot do," she said. "These animals need to be protected."