Where The Buffalo Roam: Software executive Jeff Hawn in trouble for bison killings

Today's Financial News - Posted September 16, 2008

Attachmate’s executive Jeff Hawn will have his day in court to defend his claim that buffalo don’t belong on his property.

by Christopher Corbett

Oh,give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
Home On The Range (traditional)

Baltimore — (TFN): I am not sure if the deer and the antelope play on software executive Jeff Hawn’s “ranch” in Colorado but the buffalo may be more careful about roaming there after 32 of them were slaughtered on Hawn’s orders.

Earlier this year, “rancher” Hawn filed a lawsuit to keep his neighbor’s buffalo from roaming on what scamps in the West call Hawn’s “ranchette.” Hawn’s “spread” is 365 acres - tiny by ranch standards. It is, by various accounts, not even used as a ranch.

Hawn is the president and CEO of Seattle-based Attachmate, a large software company. He lives in Austin, Texas where the newspaper there cheerfully dubbed him “Austin’s Most Wanted Bison Killer.” And he’s facing criminal charges now in connection with the slaughter of those bison. The scene of this merriment was near Fairplay, Colorado (I like that touch. Nice name for a town.).

How fair Hawn plays is perhaps at issue.

The Associated Press reported that Hawn’s lawsuit alleged that the bison “knocked his satellite television dishes off line and left dung, tracks and hair on “pristine pasture on rolling hills.”

I am not an authority on buffalo but I have spent a fair bit of time in the West and my impression is that buffalo – when they roam – may leave dung, tracks and hair about. They are known to do that. They are big creatures and they like to roam, as the song notes.

When the Creighton brothers were stringing the transcontinental telegraph across Nebraska and Wyoming in 1861 they had the same problem with buffalo rubbing against telegraph poles and knocking them down (Sometimes you put a few spikes in the pole to make it less attractive as a scratching post in case any one reading this is having problems with buffalo at home.)

According to the AP account of Hawn’s saga, nine days after he filed his lawsuit he gave 14 hunters approval to hunt bison on his property (they were not his bison). But we’ll let the courts sort that out. AP says that 20 of the bison were about to calve. The animals were shot and left to rot – further enraging the locals who do not appear to be fans of Hawns, for starters.

Part of “rancher” Hawn’s problem is that he is facing the open range laws still common in the West. In simple terms, animals are often allowed to graze at will. Deer and antelope may play but buffalo (and cattle) may roam. And it is up to a property owner to fence critters out, not the owners of such critters to fence them in. Drive anywhere in the rural West and there’s plenty of it and you will see signs that say – Open Range. Seems to me that Hawn ought to have been aware that buffalo might roam near his “ranch.”

Hawn’s saga is complicated. The Denver Post reports that nearly all of the beasts that were shot were not on Hawn’s property. That would seem a problem from this distance. The owner of the buffalo wants $77,000 in damages.

Hawn has hired Pamela Mackey, the lawyer who successfully defended Kobe Bryant against sexual assault charges at a Vail-area resort a few years ago. The case has a preliminary hearing this week so it remains to be seen what will happen.

But the larger matter will not be resolved in a court. The real case will be resolved the way things like this tend to be resolved in small towns. Virtually every news account of Hawn’s adventures on the range indicates that the locals loathe him. The letters to the editor of the local newspapers are unanimously anti-Hawn, arguing that the slaughter of the buffalo was a brutish and stupid thing to do. These folks ain’t vegans. Seldom is heard an encouraging word on Hawn’s behalf. And the skies now appear cloudy all day for Hawn.

I should imagine that there will be one home on the range on the market fairly soon.

ALSO: Re-read Chris Corbett’s previous article: “My Missionary Position“