UnStrung Heroes continue a legacy of unwanted fence removal

About 25 years ago a group of friends and coworkers banded together and decided to make a difference for wildlife and wild lands in their area. With little fanfare, a bit of organization, some beer and food, the group began to remove abandoned fences from National Forest lands in and around the Madison Valley. 

“I started a group,” said author and United States Forest Service retiree Jonathan Klein. “It's not really an official group. We're not a 501c or anything. It's just a bunch of people that I could cajole into coming out and rolling a barbed wire fence that has been abandoned on the national forest.”

The name of the not really an official group is UnStrung Fences, and it’s taking on new leadership as Klein passes the reigns to Mark and Heidi Genito, who will be leading the group moving forward. 

“Mark and Heidi worked for me on the trail crew,” said Klein. “They want to leave the planet better than they found it.”

Klein moves into description after description of the issues that fencing across the American West has caused and is causing for wildlife and wildlife migrations. 

“There's a mule deer migration in Wyoming right now, for a 280 mile round trip requires something like 171 fences for them to somehow jump over or go through,” he explains before going into an explanation of how fencing can be made more wildlife friendly and then eventually admitting that in his eyes there isn’t really a way to make fencing wildlife friendly. 

“Animals around here are going to have to evolve into kangaroos to successfully negotiate all these barriers,” he continued. “But there are some solutions. People who build fence, or or are having a fence built, should really try to follow wildlife-friendly fencing.”

“Now, you know, wildlife-friendly fencing is kind of a misnomer because no fence is really friendly to wildlife,” he reinforces. “But there's wildlife-friendlier fences than a lot of the ones that people put up.”

Klein describes the origins of barbed wire fencing taking the story all the way back to Joseph Glidden and his patented design in 1874 that drove cowboys off the landscape.

“Cowboys didn't like it, by the way. You know why?” Klein queried. “It took their jobs. So if you want to save the American cowboy, get rid of barbed wire. Open range needs a lot of people herding cattle around when they're once they're enclosed. Not so many.”

Looking forward, Klein sees gps collars for cattle as a possible solution that won’t help restore the role of the cowboys, but could result in less fencing for wildlife to deal with on the landscape and give cows a status that they never dreamed up socially. 

“I was on a ranch in the Centennial Valley, and the cattle are now wearing those collars,” he explains. “You know, that kind of bling is very, very attractive on a black cow. It really is. I mean, the other cows are probably looking over and going, ‘I wish I had one of those. The ones with the collars probably attract more bulls.”

Setting the desirability of the cows' collars and the notion that Peter Theil, who also owns Palantir, is an investor in industry leading Halo, Klein said that moving cows with an app on a ranchers’ smartphones could be a way to eliminate many of the problems created by fencing. 

Until then, Klein will be handing over UnStrung Heroes to the Genitos to continue the laid back mission and the unwanted fence removal tasks that few others want to do. 

“It's such satisfying work because when you see a landscape with a bunch of fence and some of it's in disrepair. There's metal fence posts in a beautiful area, and it cordons off the whole landscape in such a way that doesn't feel open or free.  And then you think, once you remove that before and after, it's just like, remarkable,” he said. 

As the project moves forward, he knows that there will be a need to get new people excited about the remarkable work they’ve been able to accomplish. 

“We have 13 volunteers for this project,” Klein explained about the one and half miles of barbed wire fence the group removed on Saturday Aug. 28. “We need younger blood because the average age for this thing is probably going to be, you know, 65.”

With the Genitos in charge, and in their 40s, Klein is confident that the future will be bright for the group. He’s looking forward to seeing them add to the 25 years of difficult and rewarding work that has already been done. 

“I'd say over 25 years  we've probably done about 20 projects, and we've probably gotten out about 50 miles of fence,” he explained. Most of the fence has been removed from USFS land and he is quick to point out that they have been instrumental in helping the group get the work done. 

“Jake Stewart of the Forest Service has been instrumental in providing assistance for this volunteer project,” he said. “The Forest Service in this district has been really proactive in helping the mission of UnStrung Heroes. Of course, we're doing them a huge favor. Sure, but we're working together, and that's how you get things done.”