{"id":15630,"date":"2025-11-19T23:28:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-cattle-drives-ongoing-sheriff-urges-drivers-to-slow\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:49:35","slug":"with-cattle-drives-ongoing-sheriff-urges-drivers-to-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/with-cattle-drives-ongoing-sheriff-urges-drivers-to-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"With cattle drives ongoing, sheriff urges drivers to slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kelleen
Kelleen Koppenhafer drives cattle north through Mancos toward U.S. Highway 160 on their way to San Juan National Forest Service land for summer grazing. (Journal file photo)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma County traffic isn\u2019t exclusive to cars. Rural life often includes hundreds of cattle and a couple of working dogs trudging along Colorado highways.<\/p>\n

Livestock drives will continue through early December, and the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office asks motorists to share the road and allow cattle to pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see a cattle drive, you need to slow down,\u201d said Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust be patient, you\u2019ll get through the herd. If they\u2019re coming to you, stop, and let them go around you. If they\u2019re going in the same direction as you, just drive so slowly, and I mean really slowly. You\u2019ll get through it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Deputies
Deputies recently aided ranch hands with traffic flow. A Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office post included safety tips, reminding drivers to stay aware during these driving seasons. (Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cattle
Cattle spread out across a fenced pasture in early autumn along Colorado Highway 145, a common corridor for herd movement. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Cattle drives may involve 30 to 300 animals on the roadway, accompanied by working dogs and sometimes ranchers on horseback as they move seasonally between high-country and valley pastures.<\/p>\n

Under state law, ranchers and cowhands have the right to move livestock on public roads, including cattle, horses or sheep. Nowlin said drives more commonly occur along Colorado Highways 145 and 184 and east and south on U.S. 160. Major cattle-drive corridors also include Roads 25 and 29, north and south of Dolores on Road 31, and near Mancos on Road 41.<\/p>\n

Nowlin said the reminder was not prompted by an uptick in incidents but is a timely message issued during peak herd migrations in spring and fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the drivers that create the incidents and problems,\u201d Nowlin said. \u201cIt\u2019s a safety hazard, because a lot of folks figure they don\u2019t have a right to be in the road, and they can use their vehicle to push them out of the way. That\u2019s a violation of state law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot use your vehicle to hit anything,\u201d he continued, adding that deputies have responded to crashes in past years involving horses being struck because drivers refused to slow down.<\/p>\n

He said for farmers, \u201cthis is their livelihood,\u201d and anyone who hits livestock or horses due to negligence commits a crime.<\/p>\n

Cow-calf pairs may bellow or dart unpredictably as they try to reunite with their young, and drivers should be ready to stop completely if this happens. Nowlin asked people not to honk, which startles the animals and complicates the work of herders.<\/p>\n

Nighttime poses the greatest danger because dark-colored livestock are hard to spot, causing most crashes involving cars and livestock.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes with fences, the cattle do get out on the roadways. So, just like with all wildlife out there, people have to watch for loose cattle getting out on the roadway. So just be patient and be aware that they are out there,\u201d Nowlin said.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office coordinates with ranchers when possible. Ranchers often give notice before moving herds so deputies can assist with traffic control.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re still going to see them even through the holidays and into the first part of December,\u201d Nowlin said.<\/p>\n

\"Cattle
Cattle graze land outside Mancos in early October. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018You\u2019ll get through the herd,\u2019 sheriff says, saying drivers should stop and wait<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19758,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630\/revisions\/19758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15630"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}