Commission votes to keep longhorns at county park

BY JEFF B. FLINN Managing Editor

Kendall County owns three longhorns currently living and grazing on property at Joshua Springs Park and Reserve. That is where they will live out the rest of their lives – unless someone else wants to care for them otherwise.

County commissioners Nov. 13 heard from Joe Reissig, Kendall County parks director, who updated them on issues regarding care for the longhorns, and safety of his staff.

“There’s one that’s very docile. The other two are aggressive, one way more than the other,” Reissig said. “They have torn down fences on multiple occasions. In getting them back into their enclosures they have shown aggression to myself and staff.”

The county received the longhorns as gifts accepted in about 2009. Reissig said he possesses certificates on two longhorns, one of which died last year, reducing the herd from four to its current three.

County Auditor Corinna Speer said two longhorns were donated to the county “and the court at that time was OK with that.”

Precinct 2 Commissioner Andra Wisian said she talked with Stephen Zoeller, county extension agent, after paying a visit to the park.

“He actually hauled two of them to the park and he said that was around 2009,” Wisian said.

Reissig added, “Where they came from, who they were given to … or whose they are is still a bit unclear to me, but their certificates say 2007.”

The staff does not like to feed them unless the longhorns are in the back of two pastures. Members of the Boerne Area Model Society have a runway at the park adjacent to the back field and use the site with regularity.

“The people at BAMS. when they crash their airplanes, they aren’t comfortable going to get them,” Reissig said. “The longhorns are behind a hotwired fence, and numerous people have been shocked.

“It’s my job to bring you perceived risks. I think having potentially aggressive animals of any kind, behind an electric fence at our highest populated park, is unnecessary and not ideal,” he added.

Staffing required to care for the animals is negligible, he said. He estimated feed requirements total about $3,000 per year.

“They’re relatively easy (to care for),” he said. “Lightening my workload is definitely not what I’m trying to do here. It’s about the safety issue.”

The lifespan of a longhorn, Reissig said, is typically 20-25 years and the animals are about 18 years old.

Wisian said she recently walked the park grounds and said the rear patch of grass is bare, overgrazed, and not a good place for the longhorns to be kept.

She recommended closing a gate between the park’s two patches of land where the longhorn graze.

“I would recommend we do that immediately. And if we do decide to keep them, then we need to have a more permanent fence there,” she said.

“To me, they represent a legacy and a heritage for our rural county. I also think that as gifts to the county, we're stuck with them,” she added. She said she disliked the option of getting rid of the longhorn.

“Likely, if we ‘relocate’ them, they’re going to go to the Fredericksburg sale barn and then they are going to the packer. I don’t think our county residents would be in favor of that,” she said, a statement she later repeated. After discussion in executive session, commissioners approved a motion from Wisian to keep the longhorn at Joshua Springs, with herself and Zoeller appointed to preside over developing a plan for their care.

“We can’t give them away, they have to be taken by someone who will keep them in trust for the county,” she said. “Maybe there’s someone out there that would love to have them and keep them in trust, and they die on their place.”