Animal Abuse Case Against Idaho Rancher Moves Forward

An animal neglect case against an Orofino, Idaho rancher is moving ahead.  

Doug Towles of Clearwater County is charged with ‘permitting animals to go without care.” Dozens of his cattle have been found dead or starving. They’ve also been found on his neighbors’ property.

Linda Crawford’s house and land border Towles’ property. Crawford moved to Orofino in 1995. She said one of the first things she did when she moved to her acreage was to take down all the fence to open it up.

“Well, a week later it was full of cows.”

That fence that has since been rebuilt.

Crawford is not the only neighbor to experience this. Others say the issue of hungry and thirsty cows coming on to their property has been an issue for years.

Clearwater County Sheriff Chris Goetz says Towles’ cows have also been spotted unaccompanied on private and public land near Orofino. He said he and his deputies rounded up and sold six cattle they found unbranded and wandering.

 “We thought that would kind of put an end to what was going on as far as just running non branded cattle and unvaccinated cattle over the hillside, but it didn’t,” he says.

One factor is Idaho’s open range law, which was enacted in 1961. According to the law, it’s up to the landowners to keep the cows fenced out, not the ranchers to keep cows fenced in. Those were the days when the people who lived here were the farmers and ranchers who owned the animals. Goetz said the demographic is changing. Now, new people who move in are surprised to find cows wandering through their property.

 “We’re seeing more and more than, I think the entire state of Idaho seen that and probably across the Northwest is seeing that we’ve got land being subdivided that historically had cattle on it,” says Goetz.

Tess Bradley, whose land also borders Towles, filed a complaint about unvaccinated and unbranded cattle being on the open range with the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

That’s when the state started investigating Towles. 

The state of Idaho has legal vaccination requirements every rancher has to follow. Bradley says open range doesn’t give ranchers the right not to take care of their cattle.

“They’re breaking down fences to get to food and get to water. If he would have taken care of them properly, it wouldn’t have been an issue,” she says.

Neither Towles or his lawyer responded to requests to be interviewed.

After an April 8th hearing, the Clearwater County Sheriff’s Office sold the cattle to recoup the expense of catching and feeding them. Once the costs are paid back to the county, Towles will be given the remainder of the money.

Because he has not yet been found guilty of animal abuse, he is still allowed to have cattle. He has been feeding them off a hay truck on his property.

Sheriff Goetz says a few cattle are still roaming around the Twin Ridge area in Orofino.

Next month, attorneys for Towles and the state of Idaho will meet to see if they can settle the case instead of going to trial.