In the Western United States and Canada, open range is rangeland where cattle roam freely regardless of land ownership. Where there are "open range" laws, those wanting to keep animals off their property must erect a fence to keep animals out; this applies to public roads as well. Land in open range that is designated as part of a "herd district" reverses liabilities, requiring an animal's owner to fence it in or otherwise keep it on the person's own property. Most eastern states and jurisdictions in Canada require owners to fence in or herd their livestock.
History and practice
The Western open-range tradition originated from the early practice of unregulated grazing in newly acquired western territories, which was codified in the laws of Western US states as they developed written statutes. Over time, as the Western lands became more developed (railroads, mining, farming, etc.) the open range laws started to be challenged and were significantly curtailed, but they still exist in certain areas of most western states. Open range conditions also existed in Western Canada prior to amendments the Dominion Lands Act in 1889 which prohibited cattle from grazing on unleased land, though the practice did not disappear immediately. Open range management has also been practiced in other areas, such as Caribbean and even the eastern state of South Carolina during the colonial period.
The practice was used in Mexico, and some argue it may have been the predecessor to the open range practice in the American West, which borrowed many other cattle raising techniques from Mexico.
Unlike the eastern United States, the western prairies of the 19th century were vast, undeveloped, and uncultivated, with scarce, widely separated sources of water. Until the invention of barbed wire in the 1870s, it was more practical to fence the livestock out of developed land, rather than to fence it in. As the United States government acquired western territories, land not yet placed into private ownership was publicly owned and freely available for grazing cattle, though conflicting land claims and periodic warfare with Native Americans of the Great Plains placed some practical limits on grazing areas at various times.
Free-roaming range cattle calved, were moved between grazing lands, and driven to market by cowboys. Branding was used to identify cattle belonging to different owners. Unbranded cattle were known as "mavericks" and could become the property of anyone able to capture and brand the unmarked animal.
The invention of barbed wire in the 1870s allowed cattle to be confined to designated areas to prevent overgrazing of the range. In Texas and surrounding areas, increased population required ranchers to fence off their individual lands. This initially brought considerable drama to western rangeland. Its invention made fencing huge expanses cheaper than hiring cowboys for handling cattle, and indiscriminate fencing of federal lands often occurred in 1880s, often without any regards to land ownership or other public needs, such as mail delivery and movement of other kinds of livestock. Various state statutes, as well as vigilantes (see "Fence Cutting War"), tried to enforce or combat fence-building with varying success. In 1885, federal legislation outlawed the enclosure of public land. By 1890, illegal fencing had been mostly removed.
In the north, overgrazing stressed the open range, leading to insufficient winter forage for the cattle and starvation, particularly during the harsh winter of 1886–1887, when hundreds of thousands of cattle died across the Northwest, leading to collapse of the cattle industry. By the 1890s, barbed wire fencing was also standard in the northern plains, railroads had expanded to cover most of the nation, and meat packing plants were built closer to major ranching areas, making long cattle drives from Texas to the railheads in Kansas unnecessary. Hence, the age of the open range was gone and large cattle drives were over. Meanwhile, ranches multiplied all over the developing West.
Where there are "open range" laws, peo