PIPESTONE - Jefferson County law enforcement has concluded its investigation into complaints about barbed wire on some public trails and found these reports unfounded and not indicative of malicious intent.
The U.S. Forest Service investigated reports between May 26 and June 5 of barbed wire allegedly strung across off-highway vehicle trails in the Pipestone Recreation Area and other parts of Jefferson County.
The first complaint at Spire Rock turned out to be barbed wire on permitted property for cattle grazing.
WATCH: Jefferson County barbed wire complaints on OHV trails found unfounded, not malicious
A second report in the Bernice area turned out to be a three-wire cattle fence on private property.
The third report near Blacktail Canyon was just a loose ratchet strap near a tree with no barbed wire.
A rancher and his assistant mending barbed wire fences near the Four Corners Campground said this is good news.
“This is good that it came out that nobody was out maliciously trying to hurt anybody. They’re just maintaining contractual fences to maintain the cattle in the correct places,” Craig Turk said.
The forest service reminds people to be considerate of other users of the land in Pipestone, and that there are active, legitimate Cattle operations in the area that require fencing.
Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish the proper trails.
“Used to be a lot of signs that said this is not a designated trail, but some people have torn down a lot of them,” local rancher Steve Bateman said.
Sometimes people illegally cut wire to ride through permitted grazing land.
“And then somebody cuts the fence, and the trail gets made, and somebody comes along blind, innocent, and hits it; they’re the ones that get hurt,” Turk said.
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