Las Vegas ‘tortoise gulag’ paroles last inmates

A desert tortoise crawls free after being released into the desert near Primm on Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. The Desert Tortoises Conservation Center which housed the tortoise, relocated its final 53 tortoises before the center is scheduled closing in Dec. (David Becker/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

JEAN — After years — perhaps a lifetime — in cushy captivity, desert tortoise No. 6349 spent his first five minutes of freedom hunched motionless under a bush in a rocky dry wash 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Finally, as his human handlers backed away, 6349 poked his head out of his shell and started to explore his new home — slowly, of course.

He had no way of knowing it, but he marks the end of an era. He was part of the final batch to be set free in the wild before the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center shuts down for good in December, after more than 20 years at the southwestern edge of Las Vegas.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to close the 220-acre center last year, after its federal funding was eliminated. Since then, the center’s contract operator, the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, has been working with its partners to empty the facility, mostly by releasing healthy tortoises into the wild.

The center was caring for roughly 1,400 of the animals as recently as 18 months ago. Today, all that remain are about 50 adults awaiting shipment to a new exhibit at the Springs Preserve, a research facility in Battle Mountain and the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.

Another 40 hatchlings born at the center will sleep through the winter in covered outdoor pens at the site and be released into the wild next year, said Mike Senn, assistant field supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Southern Nevada.

Senn said no tortoises have been euthanized — or will be — because of the closure of the center, though some animals have been humanely killed over the past two years because they were too sick to save.

He estimates that about 30 percent of tortoises that came into the center had to be put down for medical reasons.

Since 1989, the desert tortoise has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The conservation center was established in the 1990s as a place for developers to put tortoises removed from job sites in booming Clark County, but it soon became the valley’s de facto shelter for unwanted pet reptiles.

Last year, the center announced it no longer would accept former pets and strays, which were pouring into the facility at a rate of about 1,000 a year, overwhelming its budget and research mission.

The center’s closure in two months will end what has, at times, been a troubled and patchwork effort to save the tortoise, even as researchers were trying to better understand the species and the reasons for its decline.

That led to mistakes.

During the center’s first decade or so, thousands of tortoises were euthanized under a policy that called for the destruction of any animal showing signs of a deadly upper respiratory tract disease considered a threat to the species. It was later learned that tortoises could test positive for the disease but never develop it, either because they had been exposed and recovered or because they could carry it without ever showing symptoms or passing it on. That led to a change in the disease protocol that dramatically reduced the number killed.

Senn said the center’s procedures for determining which tortoises to release have also improved greatly over time and so have survival rates. Early in the program, he said, “They were releasing whatever — anything that wasn’t dead.”

Longtime local conservationist John Hiatt said the center’s legacy will be decidedly mixed. He said “it seemed like a good idea” to have a holding area for tortoises that otherwise would be literally bulldozed in the name of development.

“But in the final analysis, it just wasn’t a long-term or permanent solution,” he said, especially after it became a shelter for a pet tortoise population far larger than expected.

The center has a nickname in the environmental community: “The tortoise gulag.”

“That’s what a lot of people referred to it as because tortoises went there and were put into little pens and that was it,” Hiatt said.

Friday’s release took place in an area west of Interstate 15 south of Jean known as the Large Scale Translocation Site. Of the more than 10,000 tortoises released from the conservation center since 1997, most of them have come to this 27,000-acre swath of federal land where the species’ population density is much higher than it would be under natural conditions, Senn said.

Federal officials and their state and local partners also have established other tortoise release areas at the base of the Spring Mountains south of Pahrump and in the canyons and desert south of Boulder City. A few years ago, a group of test subjects equipped with tracking devices was set loose at the Nevada National Security Site.

Studies conducted in recent years suggest former pet tortoises, even those born in captivity, survive in the wild at about the same rate as the natural population.

“It doesn’t take them very long to go out and be a real tortoise again,” Senn said. “They have that instinct.”

On Friday, it took about 25 biologists and volunteers less than an hour to release 53 tortoises. The crew spent longer driving to the site than it did emptying the animals from their plastic tubs.

No. 6349 was set free by Daniel Essary, a research assistant from the San Diego Zoo, who could find himself out of a job in December. Essary figures he has released roughly 250 tortoises into the Nevada desert over the past five years, and he noticed something familiar about the way 6349 reacted to its release by hiding in his shell.

It’s impossible to know for sure, but Essary said he would bet that 6349 wasn’t always a guest of the government or a backyard pet.

“I’m pretty sure he’s had his time in the wild before,” he said as he watched the tortoise begin to move.

As Wild Horses Overrun the West, Ranchers Fear Land Will Be Gobbled Up

A roundup in the desert outside of Rock Springs, Wyo. For decades, the Bureau of Land Management has relied on a strategy of rounding up excess wild horses with helicopters and storing them in private ranches and feedlots. But the system is out of space and money. (Michael Friberg - The New York Times)

By DAVE PHILIPPS
New York Times

BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — When he was a boy on a 150,000-acre ranch here in the desert mountains, which are so remote that there is no power line and electricity comes from a turbine in a mountain spring, Mark Wintch would thrill at the sight of a rare band of wild horses kicking up dust as they disappeared over a rise.

“Now there’re so darned many,” Mr. Wintch, 38, said, shaking his head as he bounced his red pickup through sage-dotted public land that his family has ranched since 1935. “Look out there. You barely see a blade of grass.”

Management plans by the federal government call for no horses in this area. But five horses looked up in alarm at his truck, then wheeled off through the brush. “I counted 60 last night,” Mr. Wintch said. “If I put my cows out here, they’d starve.”

Wild horses may be a symbol of America’s unbound freedom in the Old West. But in the new West, they are a tightly controlled legal entity, protected by federal law and managed by a perplexing system on the brink of a crisis.

There are now twice as many wild horses in the West as federal land managers say the land can sustain. The program that manages them has broken down, and unchecked populations pose a threat to delicate public land, as well as the ranches that rely on it.

For decades, the Bureau of Land Management has relied on a strategy of rounding up excess horses with helicopters and storing them in a system of private ranches and feedlots. But now there are almost 50,000 horses in storage, and the system is out of space and money. In response, the agency has drastically cut roundups, leaving horses to multiply on the range.

The Bureau of Land Management says that Western rangelands can sustain about 26,000 wild horses. There are now 48,000. In five years, there could be more than 100,000, according to agency projections.

“It’s a train wreck,” said Robert Garrott, a professor of wildlife management and ecology at Montana State University. “I’m worried we are entering an intractable situation that will damage the land for decades.”

If left unchecked, horse populations could decimate grass and water on public lands, he said, potentially leading to starvation among horse herds and other native species, as well as lawsuits from ranchers and wildlife groups.

Mr. Wintch and a group of other local ranchers sued the federal government in April, demanding that it remove excess wild horses.

While some ranchers and politicians have pushed to slaughter the horses in storage to free up money and space to continue roundups, Professor Garrott said the idea had proved so controversial that the Bureau of Land Management and Congress had repeatedly refused.

“Horses are so beloved in our society that no one wants to make a hard decision,” Professor Garrott said. “So we take this disastrous policy and just keep kicking it down the road.”

Wild horses today are the descendants of stray American Indian ponies and cavalry mounts, as well as more recent ranch stock. Roaming a patchwork of parched rangeland roughly the size of Alabama, they have been protected by federal law since 1971 from capture or hunting. Since then, the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees most of the herds, has said that keeping the population around 26,000 would ensure the long-term health of the horses and the land.

Every year, the agency removes horses from the land and offers them for adoption, using programs with 4-H children and prison inmates to train the animals. But adoption numbers have never come close to equaling removal numbers.

So for about 25 years, the agency has been paying contractors to house mustangs in private feedlots and pastures spread across several states, which now costs the agency almost $50 million a year.

The hefty bill has sapped the management program’s ability to do much else. As a result, the agency cut roundups this year by almost 80 percent.

This summer, two longtime storage facilities abruptly ended their contracts with the Bureau of Land Management, forcing the agency to find a place for nearly 3,000 horses.

“It’s a triage situation,” said Steve Ellis, the agency’s deputy director for operations. “We can’t do all we need to.”

The agency usually rounds up about 9,000 animals a year. This year, it will round up just 2,500.

Mr. Ellis said he was exploring new strategies, such as sending some excess animals to Guatemalan farmers, but the agency does not have a broad, long-term solution.

“It’s going to take some patience,” Mr. Ellis said. “I know some people will say, ‘We’ve been patient for 20 years,’ but we have to look forward. This tough situation we are in is not going to be fixed overnight.”

But patience in parts of the West has worn as thin as the grass.

Ranchers in Wyoming won a lawsuit this summer that demanded the agency remove horses from public and private lands east of Rock Springs. Though the agency had little room in storage, it was forced to round up almost 900 horses there in September.

The Bureau of Land Management expects more lawsuits as horse populations grow, pushing storage costs even higher.

“For years, we all warned they were managing their way into a crisis, and now they have it,” said Ginger Kathrens, the executive director of the horse advocacy group the Cloud Foundation, as she watched helicopters sweep the sage at a roundup in Rock Springs. She said she feared the Bureau of Land Management and ranchers would use the situation to pressure lawmakers to slaughter horses in storage.

Horse advocacy groups say that the population problem is overblown, and that the agency has unfairly relegated horses to scraps of marginal land where they are vastly outnumbered by cattle, then blamed the horses for the damage done by all grazers. Many are pushing for expanded horse territories and better management on the range.

But those advocates also agree that the practice of removing and storing horses is unsustainable.

Bureau of Land Management officials said they were forced to create a huge storage system by laws and policies that require the removal of horses from the range, but that provide little funding for alternatives and prohibit horses from being euthanized or sold to be slaughtered.

For decades, horse advocacy groups and the National Academy of Sciences have recommended using fertility-control drugs instead of roundups. But the agency contends that the drugs, which must be given every two years by injection, are impractical to administer in large herds on open lands.

The government has been trying to develop more effective drugs, such as an injection that will last five years, but it is unclear when they might become available.

On his ranch, Mr. Wintch drove up to a juniper-dotted hillside where a few years before, state wildlife workers had fenced in eight-foot squares with wire mesh to study the effect of grazing. In the protection of the squares, tawny tufts of Indian rice grass nodded in the breeze. Outside the squares, hard-packed dirt held a few vestiges of grass cropped down to nubs.

“This is all horses,” he said. “I haven’t put out cattle here at all this year.”

Last fall, the Bureau of Land Management sent a letter to Mr. Wintch and a dozen other ranchers in the region, saying that wild horses were increasing and that with no money for roundups, the ranchers should voluntarily cut their herds by half.

So this spring, Mr. Wintch sold a third of his cattle and let the rest out in his hayfields, where, he said, they will eat about $150,000 in winter hay.

“We can’t last out here if this continues,” Mr. Wintch said.

The Bureau of Land Management replied to the lawsuit by Mr. Wintch and the group of other local ranchers last week, denying it has violated federal law by failing to control horse populations.

“We don’t want to sue, but this is killing us financially,” said Tammy Pearson, who ranches near Mr. Wintch.

This summer, she kept her cattle out of the Bureau of Land Management pasture she leases because, she said, the horses had eaten the grass.

“It’s not a horse issue,” she said, looking across the pasture, where about 60 wild horses grazed. “It’s a range health issue. This land is getting beat up pretty good. Sure, it’s easy to blame the ranchers, but if you took us all off the land, you still wouldn’t solve the problem. The horses would just continue to expand. And then what?”

She chuckled at a small gray colt gamboling after its mother, and then, like many ranchers, wondered aloud why the 50,000 horses in storage could not be slaughtered and the meat put to some use.

“The situation we have right now is kind of insane,” she said. “People just think horses should be free, and as long as they are free they’ll be fine. But it’s not true.”

Desert tortoise doing just fine

EDITORIAL

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The desert tortoise is so threatened, in such a fight for species survival, that it desperately needs birth control.

If you’ve read this page for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with the federal government’s absurd efforts to protect a reptile that doesn’t need protection. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of desert tortoises live in Las Vegas Valley backyards or in pens as pets. But federal law is concerned solely with species populations that live in the wild. So the fact that desert tortoises breed, thrive and actually fare better as pets is a problem in need of fixing.

As reported Wednesday by the Review-Journal’s Henry Brean, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is inviting veterinarians from across the West to come to Las Vegas to participate in a two-day tortoise sterilization clinic. The public will pay for experts to teach the latest snipping techniques.

Hey, at least federal officials are no longer focused on killing the creatures they say they’re trying to protect — at one point, they were ready to euthanize surplus tortoises at their conservation center. But a far more cost-effective approach would be to remove the thriving creatures from the threatened species list altogether. Consider this problem solved. Leave the tortoises alone, already.

After Nevada ranch stand-off, emboldened militias ask: where next?

Eric Parker from central Idaho stands watch on a bridge with his weapon as protesters gather by the Bureau of Land Management's base camp, where cattle that were seized from rancher Cliven Bundy are being held, near Bunkerville, Nevada April 12, 2014.(REUTERS/JIM URQUHART)

BY JONATHAN ALLEN
REUTERS

(Reuters) - Flat on his belly in a sniper position, wearing a baseball cap and a flak jacket, a protester aimed his semi-automatic rifle from the edge of an overpass and waited as a crowd below stood its ground against U.S. federal agents in the Nevada desert.

He was part of a 1,000-strong coalition of armed militia-men, cowboys on horseback, gun rights activists and others who rallied to Cliven Bundy's Bunkerville ranch, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, in a stand-off with about a dozen agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The rangers had rounded up hundreds of Bundy's cattle, which had been grazing illegally on federal lands for two decades. Bundy had refused to pay grazing fees, saying he did not recognize the government's authority over the land, a view that attracted vocal support from some right-wing groups.

Citing public safety, the BLM retreated, suspending its operation and even handing back cattle it had already seized.

No shots were fired during the stand-off, which Bundy's triumphant supporters swiftly dubbed the "Battle of Bunkerville," but the government's decision to withdraw in the face of armed resistance has alarmed some who worry that it has set a dangerous precedent and emboldened militia groups.

"Do laws no longer apply when the radical right no longer agrees?" said Ryan Lenz, a writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors militia group activity.

Armed Americans using the threat of a gunfight to force federal officers to back down is virtually unparalleled in the modern era, militia experts said. But the BLM, which says it is now pursuing legal and administrative options to resolve the dispute, has won praise for stepping back and avoiding violence.

Energized by their success, Bundy's supporters are already talking about where else they can exercise armed defiance. They include groups deeply suspicious of what they see as a bloated, over-reaching government they fear wants to restrict their constitutional right to bear arms.

Alex Jones, a radio host and anti-government conspiracy theorist whose popular right-wing website, Infowars, helped popularize Bundy's dispute, called it a watershed moment.

"Americans showed up with guns and said, 'No, you're not," before confronting the armed BLM agents, Jones said in a telephone interview. "And they said, 'Shoot us.' And they did not. That's epic. And it's going to happen more."

Militia experts interviewed by Reuters said they could not think of another example in recent decades where different militia groups had banded together to offer armed resistance to thwart a law enforcement operation.

In the days since the showdown, right-wing websites have begun searching for other Bundys. Several conservative and survivalist blogs have seized on the case of Tommy Henderson, a rancher on the Texas-Oklahoma border who they say is fighting BLM attempts to seize some of his land.

MILITARY FATIGUES, RIFLES

Few people had heard of Bundy and his ranch until a few days before the stand-off. Right-wing websites and advocacy groups such as Americans for Prosperity, founded by one of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, cast his tale in a folksy David and Goliath light and helped spread it online.

Someone who has known Bundy since his early 1990s fall-out with the BLM is Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who founded the militia group Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.

Mack is also a prominent member of Oath Keepers, a similar group of serving or former soldiers, police and firefighters who view themselves as defenders of the U.S. Constitution. More than 100 Oath Keepers headed to the desert, Mack said.

Mack, who proposed putting women on the front line of the stand-off with the agents, said armed resistance was a justified response to a "totally unnecessary" show of force by the BLM.

"It was so obvious it looked like it was going to be another Waco or Ruby Ridge," Mack said, referring to two bloody sieges in the 1990s involving federal agents and armed civilians that fueled the militia movement.

"We weren't going to let that happen again," he said.

A number of Bundy supporters wore military fatigues and carried rifles and pistols and had traveled from California, Idaho, Arizona, Montana and beyond. Most kept their handguns holstered.

Mack, who wore his gun on his hip, and other Bundy supporters interviewed by Reuters said they would not shoot first but would retaliate if fired upon.

"We did not want anything to get out of hand," Mack said.

GAME-CHANGER?

The weekend showdown marked the latest resurgence of violent, anti-government sentiments that have existed in rural America for centuries, said Catherine Stock, a history professor at Connecticut College who specializes in rural militias.

"The question is whether we're going to see sustained flame-up now. We could see more of that if they actually think that the federal government is going to stand down," she said.

"It's not the groups, it's not their concerns, it's not their anger, all of that is old, but the federal government backing down? I was like, wow! Seriously?"

Stock said the rise of right-wing media outlets and websites and the election of Republican politicians who have shifted the party further to the right have given a new legitimacy to groups that were once dismissed as being on the fringe.

At least half a dozen state legislators from Nevada, Washington, Utah and Arizona attended protest rallies in Bunkerville at the weekend.

Michele Fiore, a Republican Nevada assemblywoman from Las Vegas who said she joined the protesters daily after getting a torrent of supportive emails about Bundy from constituents, called the resistance "justified."

"This is historic," she said. "This is the first time we went arm to arm with the federal government."

GOVERNMENT MISSTEPS?

The Bundy dispute has been simmering since 1993, when the BLM took over the management of the land on which his cattle grazed. The agency ordered him to reduce the number of grazing cattle to protect the habitat of the desert tortoise, which had been listed as "threatened."

Bundy refused and has not paid grazing fees since then. The BLM says he now owes more than $1 million.

Critics of the BLM, which administers 245 million acres of public land in the 12 Western states, say it mishandled the situation and was unprepared for the armed resistance, despite fears in past years that the seizure of the illegally grazing cattle could spark violence.

BLM spokesman Craig Leff said the "safety of employees and the public was key throughout the course of the operation." The BLM, National Park Service and the U.S. Park police "had the minimal personnel needed to maintain the safety of the operation," he added.

Two sets of images were frequently cited by those who saw the roundup of Bundy's cattle as a call to arms.

The first showed BLM agents using a stun gun to subdue one of Bundy's sons at a small protest on April 9, bloodying his shirt over his heart, and a female relative of Bundy being knocked to the ground in a tussle with agents.

"Looking at that made it extremely clear that these federal agents are willing to hurt people and didn't think they would be accountable," said militia leader Mack.

Photographs of a so-called "First Amendment Zone", a taped-off patch of desert where agents would allow protests to be held, also prompted outrage.

Mack, and other militia members, say they have yet to pick their next battle. "We're only reacting to what the government does," he said. "We hope that they'll keep it a little calm from now on and not overreact."

What the Networks Aren't Telling You About the Nevada Cattle Battle

Cliven Bundy's son interviewed on the Today show.

By Rich Noyes
Newsbusters.com

The showdown between federal authorities and rancher Cliven Bundy, his family and supporters in Nevada is one of those rare topics from the libertarian-conservative news agenda that actually made its way into the establishment media. Between last Thursday and Monday, ABC, CBS and NBC gave the story a total of nearly 16 minutes of coverage on their morning and evening newscasts.

Network journalists have consistently framed the case as one of a rancher failing to pay the requested fees for his use of government land. But they have failed to use the case to tell the larger story of how environmental rules — in this case, regulations to protect the desert tortoise, have been implemented in ways that help favored interests (land developers, or solar companies) while hurting others (cattle ranchers, for example).

The networks have focused on the amount of money the government has demanded of Cliven Bundy, and let the Bundy side talk about the government’s heavy-handed tactics in seeking collection. On Saturday’s Good Morning America, for example, ABC’s Mike Boettcher framed the story this way: “For 20 years, rancher Cliven Bundy has refused to pay rent to herd his cattle on government land, $1.1 million in grazing fees.”

The next morning on NBC, Sunday’s Today included a soundbite from Bundy’s son, Ammon, talking about the intimidating force employed by federal agents: “They had the tasers, they had the weapons, they had the dogs, and we had nothing except us. We were almost equally numbered, and then they were the aggressors.”

Omitted from the network coverage: How cattle ranchers like Bundy have been victimized by federal government plans to protect the desert tortoise, and how the current showdown was provoked by an environmentalist lawsuit. As the Las Vegas Sun explained: “Things came to a head when environmentalists threatened to sue the agency to protect the endangered desert tortoise that lives on the land where Bundy’s cattle grazed. The BLM said Bundy’s cattle trampled the tortoise’s habitat.”

In their coverage of the Nevada showdown, neither ABC nor NBC ever acknowledged the role of regulations designed to protect the tortoise, while CBS’s Teri Okita in a Friday morning report included it as an afterthought: “Authorities want the cattle off this land for another reason: Environmentalists say it’s home to the endangered desert tortoise and it’s protected land.”

In fact, the tortoise is listed as a “threatened” species, not yet “endangered,” but it’s that designation (applied in 1989) which led to restrictions on cattle ranchers’ use of land in Nevada, California and Utah. And the federal government has for decades permitted some destruction of tortoise habitats if they like the project, while cracking down on others as they see fit.

As the Powerline blog has well-documented, the BLM has enforced these rules in ways that favor projects endorsed by federal bureaucrats, such as solar projects, while being tough on the cattle ranchers.

But go back more than 20 years, and you’ll find a similar effort in the Clinton era to sacrifice 22,000 acres of tortoise habitat to Las Vegas area land developers, even as they set up restrictions on cattle ranchers including Cliven Bundy. As the Washington Post’s Tom Kenworthy documented in a March 21, 1993 article (retrieved via Nexis, so no link):

Three years ago, with tortoise populations crashing largely because of habitat destruction across its range in Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah, the federal government added the tortoise to its list of threatened species. The designation immediately imperiled tens of millions of dollars worth of construction projects in this development-crazed city.

But it also triggered a novel experiment in the peaceful resolution of endangered species conflicts that is similar, in many respects, to the process Babbitt would like to try nationwide to defuse explosive development-versus-environment fights.

Employing a rarely used mechanism approved by Congress a decade ago, environmentalists, developers, government officials, cattlemen, miners and off-road vehicle enthusiasts began negotiating a “habitat conservation plan.” The hope was it would satisfy both the needs of the tortoise and the Las Vegas area’s rapacious appetite for development.

The result was a plan to protect the tortoise by providing vast tracts of federal land as a refuge while sacrificing other tortoise areas to development....

By mid-1991, the Fish and Wildlife Service had approved a short-term conservation plan that allows for development of about 22,000 acres of tortoise habitat in and around Las Vegas in exchange for strict conservation measures on 400,000 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land south of the city. The plan is funded by development fees of between $ 250 and $ 550 an acre paid by builders. Almost $ 10 million has been raised so far.

Among the conservation measures required are the elimination of livestock grazing and strict limits on off-road vehicle use in the protected tortoise habitat. Two weeks ago, the managers of the plan completed the task of purchasing grazing privileges from cattle ranchers who formerly used BLM land....

Cattlemen are particularly irate, and have gone to court to prevent grazing restrictions on BLM land now outside the tortoise management area, where the federal agency has tried to keep cattle from competing with tortoises for forage for three months in the spring. Ranchers like Cliven Bundy, whose family homesteaded his ranch in 1877 and who accuses the government of a “land grab,” are digging in for a fight and say they will not willingly sell their grazing privileges to create another preserve.

The Post article was written more than 21 years ago, before Bundy had been assessed even one dime in fees, and validates his claim that his grievance is about the intrusiveness of federal rules aimed at protecting the desert tortoise, and how the government has used the rules as yet another tool to pick economic winners and losers.

It’s background and context that the networks could have provided as they picked up on the story of a rancher fighting the feds — but, sadly, was omitted from the broadcast coverage this past week.

Feds accused of leaving trail of wreckage after Nevada ranch standoff

By William La Jeunesse
FoxNews.com

The federal agency that backed down over the weekend in a tense standoff with a Nevada rancher is being accused of leaving a trail of wreckage behind.

Fox News toured the damage -- allegedly caused by the Bureau of Land Management -- which included holes in water tanks and destroyed water lines and fences. According to family friends, the bureau's hired "cowboys" also killed two prize bulls.

"They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week," said Corey Houston, friend of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family. "So why would you trust somebody like that? And how does that show that they're a better steward?"

The BLM and other law enforcement officials backed down on Saturday in their effort to seize Bundy's cattle, after hundreds of protesters, some armed, arrived to show support for the Bundy family. In the end, BLM officials left the scene amid concerns about safety, and no shots were fired.

The dispute between the feds and the Bundy family has been going on for years; they say he owes more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees -- and long ago revoked his grazing rights over concern for a federally protected tortoise. They sent officials to round up his livestock following a pair of federal court orders last year giving the U.S. government the authority to impound the cattle.

The feds, though, are being accused of taking the court orders way too far.

On a Friday night conference call, BLM officials told reporters that "illegal structures" on Bundy's ranch -- water tanks, water lines and corrals -- had to be removed to "restore" the land to its natural state and prevent the rancher from restarting his illegal cattle operation.

However, the court order used to justify the operation appears only to give the agency the authority to "seize and impound" Bundy's cattle.

"Nowhere in the court order that I saw does it say that they can destroy infrastructure, destroy corrals, tanks ... desert environment, shoot cattle," Houston said.

Bundy's friends say the BLM wranglers told them the bulls were shot because they were dangerous and could gore their horses. One bull was shot five times.

But Houston said the pen holding the bull wasn't even bent. "It's not like the bull was smashing this pen and trying tackle people or anything," he said. "The pen is sitting here. It hasn't moved. No damage whatsoever. Where was the danger with that bull?"

Plus he said BLM vehicles appear to have crushed a tortoise burrow near the damaged water tank. "How's that conservation?" he asked.

The BLM has not yet responded to a request for comment on these allegations.

Bundy has refused to pay the grazing fees or remove his cattle, and doesn't even acknowledge the federal government's authority to assess or collect damages.

The bureau has said if Bundy wasn't willing to pay, then they would sell his cattle.

However, there was a problem with that plan -- few in Nevada would touch Bundy's cattle for fear of being blacklisted.

"The sale yards are very nervous about taking what in the past has been basically stolen cattle from the federal government," Nevada Agriculture Commissioner Ramona Morrison said.

Documents show the BLM paid a Utah cattle wrangler $966,000 to collect Bundy's cattle and a Utah auctioneer to sell them. However, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert refused to let Bundy cattle cross state lines, saying in a letter: "As Governor of Utah, I urgently request that a herd of cattle seized by the Bureau of Land Management from Mr. Cliven Bundy of Bunkerville, Nevada, not be sent to Utah. There are serious concerns about human safety and animal health and well-being, if these animals are shipped to and sold in Utah."

That letter was sent three days before the BLM round-up, which is why the cattle were still being held Saturday in temporary pens just a few miles from Bundy's ranch. Morrison says BLM was sitting on cattle because it had no way to get rid of them -- setting up a potential tragedy as orphaned calves were not getting any milk and feed costs were about to skyrocket.

The showdown is far from over. The BLM says it will "continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially," though Bundy still doesn't recognize federal authority over the federal lands that he continues to use in violation of a court order. The federal judge who issued that decision says Bundy's claims "are without merit."

That order from October 2013 says Bundy owes $200 per day per head for every day he fails to move his cattle. That amounts to roughly $640 million in damages owed to the federal government for illegally grazing his cattle.

Why One Man Traveled Almost 3,000 Miles To Take On The Federal Government At A Ranch In Nevada

Protester Eric Parker from central Idaho aims his weapon from a bridge next to the Bureau of Land Management's base camp where seized cattle that belonged to rancher Cliven Bundy are being held near Bunkerville, Nev. April 12, 2014. U.S. officials ended a standoff with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert on Saturday, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to rancher Bundy who owned them.

Brett Logiurato
Business Insider

In early March, the Bureau of Land Management sent a letter to cattle rancher Cliven Bundy informing him they intended to impound his "trespass cattle," contending he owes more than $1.2 million in fees. On April 5, they started rounding up the cattle on his property. Since then, his story has become a cause for conservative activists frustrated with the federal government. The plight has attracted numerous activists to his property, and the conflict between Bundy's supporters and federal officials exploded onto the national scene last weekend.

Days after agents with the Bureau of Land Management ended their effort to round up Cliven Bundy's cattle to ease mounting tensions, the showdown between the rancher and the federal government is still attracting armed conservative activists from around the country to a dusty stretch of land about 80 miles east of the Vegas Strip.

Last Tuesday, as he started to read more and more about the situation on The Drudge Report, Jerry DeLemus decided to give Bundy a call.

They spent more than an hour on the phone. "What do you need?" said DeLemus, who was calling from some 2,700 miles away in Dover, N.H.

"I need help," Bundy told him. "I need bodies."

"I'm coming," DeLemus said.

It was as simple as that, DeLemus told Business Insider Tuesday. Soon, he began the long drive in his truck. His son; his friend, Jack; and Jack's son accompanied him on the cross-country trip. All in all, it took 41 hours across a three-day span. They began driving at 5:30 a.m. last Thursday and made it there by Saturday afternoon. They barely took any breaks.
This Wednesday, DeLemus remains in Nevada. He is now running the makeshift "militia" of conservatives protecting the ranch, some of whom are armed with handguns and rifles. DeLemus said about 100 conservative activists are still there, three days after federal agents returned hundreds of cattle they had taken from the ranch.

To DeLemus and these other activists, the Bundy ranch standoff is one of their most important fights yet over what they consider to be an oppressive federal government.

"We are willing to give our lives," he said in a phone interview.

Bundy's fight with the federal Bureau of Land Management dates back to 1993, when the BLM eliminated livestock grazing in the area, citing protection of an endangered tortoise species.

That was when Bundy decided to stop paying grazing fees. And now, the agency says he owes more than $1.2 million in fees. A federal judge first ruled in 1998 that Bundy was trespassing on federal land. Last year, a federal judge ruled the agency could remove the cattle. The BLM, among others, says Bundy is breaking the law.

But activists view the situation in terms of a dispute over states' rights and an oppressive federal government. It was a major topic of conversation among conservative activists last weekend in New Hampshire, where the grassroots groups Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Citizens United hosted the Freedom Summit. It was there that Business Insider met DeLemus' wife, Susan, who said he had been inspired by "freedom."

"Lawlessness," DeLemus said of the situation. "You look that up in the dictionary, and you'll see the definition of our government right beside it. They all are. Congress, both houses, and the White House."

Despite the retreat of the BLM, which cited "escalating tensions" when it returned the cattle to Bundy, DeLemus and many others there have no plan to leave anytime soon.

"You s---in' me?" he said, when asked if he was planning to head back to New Hampshire.

They, and the Bundy family, do not believe their fight with the federal government has ended. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the senior senator from Nevada, said Monday the situation was "not over," citing Bundy's apparent violation of federal law. BLM spokesman Craig Leff told CBS News the agency would now seek to resolve the situation "administratively and judicially," but was unclear on the specific next steps.

Bundy, DeLemus, and the other activists, however, might face another, more unexpected hurdle. They have failed to see much support from some prominent conservatives, who are far from unified in their opinions on the situation.

Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson said on Fox News Monday that, while Bundy was mistreated by the federal government, the land doesn't belong to him. Conservative host Glenn Beck warned conservatives against glorifying "the right's version of Occupy Wall Street."

DeLemus is an avid follower of Beck, having started up a local version of Beck's "9-12 project," comprised of nine principles and 12 values Beck says represent those of the Founding Fathers.

Though he said he actually agreed with some of the points made by Occupy Wall Street, DeLemus thinks there's a key difference here: The Bundy supporters are not being reactionary and "causing destruction." They are fighting for constitutional rights, he said.

His message to Beck and other skeptical conservatives: Come to Nevada and see the situation firsthand.

"Glenn doesn't know the whole story," DeLemus said. "He needs to come out here."

‘The Rise of the West’

Nevada standoff signifies movement against federal control of public lands

Cowboys and patriots pause for the National Anthem outside of Bunkerville, Nev. while gathering with other supporters of the Bundy family to challenge the BLM. (Reuters)

Elizabeth Harrington
Washington Free Beacon

BUNKERVILLE, NEV.— For some, the story of Cliven Bundy and his 20-year fight against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is about one man’s refusal to pay grazing fees on public land he doesn’t own.

For the family, and scores of supporters that have come to his aid in the face of aggressive force used by the federal government, what happened in Bunkerville, Nev. is about the “rise of the West.”

“As important as it is for a man to fight for his ranch and his livelihood, this is much bigger than that,” said Ammon Bundy, Cliven’s son. “This is the American people fighting for their freedoms.”

The BLM brought 200 armed officials, helicopters, and snipers with them to take the Bundys’ cattle away, a result of a two-decades court battle over $1 million in unpaid grazing fees, and the BLM’s decision to block off nearly a third of the land for the “critical desert tortoise.”

After a week of heated clashes with the family, the standoff ended on Saturday when the federal government called the operation off citing safety concerns, and cowboys and protesters stormed the impound gate to set the Bundys’ cows free.

As of Monday, not a single BLM ranger remained. But for the Bundys, and many like them, the fight has just begun.

***

Hundreds of supporters from across the country gathered off Interstate 15, about 70 miles outside of Las Vegas, on Monday. A sea of cowboy hats, “No BLM” pins, and American flags, many members of the crowd had their own story of federal bureaucrats infringing on their land.

“I’m standing on a metal knee that I got from a Bundy bull 43 years ago,” said Allen, who came from just across the border in Utah.

Allen used to do rodeo, and was bucked off one of Cliven’s brother’s bulls in 1971.

“We’re totally completely surrounded by the Forest Service where our ranch is on the mountain,” he said. “And they screw with us constantly.”

Allen said he’s been harassed by Forest Service Rangers patrolling near his family’s livestock ranch, telling him he can’t ride his ATV on the land because it isn’t “licensed.”

“I tell them, ‘You’re on my property, dude. You ain’t gotta tell me what I’m gonna do on my property.’”

“I’m sorry the Bundys are going through this, but it’s a good thing,” said Bruce Olsen, from Arizona. “It had to happen sooner or later.”

“I’ve been waiting for this event for 59 years,” he said.

Olsen grew up near Kansas City, and watched thousands of farmers displaced after the government built a dam he said the community didn’t want or need.

“The federal government in this country is gone,” Olsen said. “The best thing that could happen to this country is go to Washington, D.C., throw a long chain around the District of Columbia, drag it down the Potomac out to sea, let it sink. And it’d be two months before anyone in America ever missed them.”

David R. Rawls from Florence, Ariz., has spent most of his life battling the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service.

When Rawls, 70, was 15 years old the family was told that a railroad would be built through their six mining claim properties. His family then spent decades battling the government in the courts, and Rawls and his mother were evicted by dozens of heavily armed U.S. Marshals and Forest Service officials.

His father, a “real man of the West,” died a decade into the ordeal.

“All of the strain of this put him under so much stress, after 10 years he got kidney cancer and died,” Rawls said. “He got heart broke and sick. When dad saw that everything he had worked so hard for all his life was being stolen he got sick and died.”

Rawls has set up camp just off River Cliff Road. His white van that’s covered in political signs and quotes from Thomas Jefferson sits on the shoulder, along with hand-made six-foot signs telling his story, and messages against “totalitarianism.”

“They’re just thieves,” he said.

“Over the last 55 years I’ve watched with an eagle eye, I’ve watched them wipe out thousands of small miners, thousands of small farmers,” he said. “They’ve basically wiped out the family farm.”

Rawls said he hopes the Bundy standoff will bring awareness to what his family and so many others have gone through at the hands of federal bureaucracies.

“If fault was done to us, and a whole bunch of other people, these people could get wide exposure in this country. They would turn everything around,” he said.
“The American people would be really outraged of what’s been going on.”

***

The Bundy family stood proud during the Monday press conference, standing atop a trailer that was used for a stage. Margaret Houston, Cliven’s sister who was pushed to the ground by BLM rangers, said she feels like she has friends “all over the United States.”

“We’ve opened the door for the sheriffs and the people to step in, take care of their areas,” she said. “I feel wonderful.”

Though the family and supporters felt a sense of accomplishment, they won’t be satisfied after just pushing out the BLM.

“It’s incredibly important that we take that victory and take it and spread it around the West,” said Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, an organization of current and former military, police, and first responders who came to the Bundys’ aid.

“What’s going to happen now is the rise of the West,” he said.

In a post noting that Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on legally, attorney and blogger John Hinderaker explained why people should nevertheless be sympathetic to the family’s plight.

“The bedrock issue here is that the federal government owns more than 80% of the state of Nevada. … Most of the land is federal. And the federal agencies that rule over federal lands have agendas,” Hinderaker wrote. “At every opportunity, it seems, they restrict not only what can be done on federal lands, but on privately-owned property. They are hostile to traditional industries like logging, mining and ranching, and if you have a puddle in your back yard, the EPA will try to regulate it as a navigable waterway.”

For the Bundys, the issue isn’t about grazing fees, or the desert tortoise. The 600,000 acres of public land that the family has ranched since the 1870s should be in the hands of Nevada, they say.

“It’s not at all [about grazing fees],” Ammon Bundy said. “Because you shouldn’t have to pay rent on your own property.”

The Bundys lost in court because the federal government has held title to the land since 1838. The BLM did not begin managing the land until 1946, when the agency was founded. Believing the agency doesn’t have Nevada’s interest at heart, the Bundys want the land to be ceded to the state, and are hopeful their state government will work to make that happen.

“I think our state elected officials are going to completely take over from here,” Ammon Bundy told the Washington Free Beacon. “And they’re going to protect the people in most areas, and in ones that won’t, they’ll be replaced.”

“We’re gonna get this right,” he said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time, but we’re gonna get it right.”

Over 80 percent of Nevada is public land, but the majority of it is no longer ranched. Bundy is the last public land rancher in Clark County, and only three remain in all of Southern Nevada, according to the BLM.

The future of Bundys’ ranching in the Gold Butte area remains uncertain. Though they called off the impoundment, the BLM said it would continue to “work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said, “It’s not over.”

“We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it,” Reid said, who has close ties to the Interior Department and energy companies that have benefited from fast-tracked approval to lease federal lands for solar projects in Nevada and California. Neil Kornze, the principal deputy director for the BLM is a former energy staffer for Reid.

“So, it’s not over,” he said.

***

Armed with his DPMS 5.56 Oracle, Dale Potter was stationed at the top of the ridge, guarding the entryway into the Bundy Ranch homestead. Though the BLM is gone, armed Bundy supporters remain, in case the government comes back.

A member of the North Dakota Defense Force, Potter quit his day job doing garage door installation to help protect the Bundys.

“We are not leaving until the Bundys are safe,” he said. “Even if they think they can run us out.”

Outside the Bundys’ home were Booda Cavalier and Ryan Payne, former Marines who have joined local militias, and are running security for the Bundys’ and their 14 kids and 48 grandchildren.

“I don’t get much sleep,” said Cavalier, who operates an off-road vehicle business in Prescott, Ariz. He returned home on Saturday after the cattle were released, but quickly realized the Bundys still needed his help.

“There are still safety issues here,” he said. “And Mr. and Mrs. Bundy are concerned with their safety and their family’s safety.”

“This is duty,” said Payne, an industrial and commercial electrician from Montana. A former assistant team leader in a long-range surveillance unit for the XVIII Airborne Corps, Payne joined the West Mountain Rangers, 41st Mountain Field Force militia group a year and a half ago.

He started Operation Mutual Aid, a coalition of militias that travel across the country to provide defense of “public and private property, lives, and liberty,” with Jerry Bruckhart.

“We’re normal people, just like anybody else,” Cavalier said. “We’ll sit here and bullshit, and have a beer and a campfire, let the kids run around.”

Cavalier said the Bundys’ stand against the BLM will have major implications.

“It’s huge. I wish there would have been more, true mainstream media coverage to share this to the world,” he said. “This is a serious event.”

“Part of Operation Mutual Aid’s mission is to illuminate how you can stand in defense of liberty and actually accomplish it, because people are scared and they don’t know how to do it,” Payne said. “They just saw how to do it.”

For Cavalier and Payne, witnessing the Bundys’ young grandchildren play as if nothing has happened makes the sacrifice of their time and energy worth it.

“Seeing the kids reinforces why we’re here,” Payne said. “This is to secure freedom for our progeny.”

“I come out here to do a duty that’s right,” Cavalier said. “And to see the feeling of Mr. Bundy’s cattle coming down that hill. And [Cliven] just tells me, ‘Booda, let’s go into my river.’”

“And we all went into that river, and watching him bend over and splash some cool water in his face, and then Mrs. Bundy coming down, and him splashing his wife, saying, ‘Hey, we almost did it, honey.’ And the kids playing out here,” he said. “The people’s comfort that they provide you is—it’s almost erotic. I can’t walk into that house without coming out and Mrs. Bundy trying to rifle some food down our throats.”

“The rewarding feeling of something like that, I can’t even put it into words,” he said. “That’s the simplicity of it.”

Obama administration’s ‘Culture of intimidation’ seen in Nevada ranch standoff

Critics say fight isn’t first instance of feds’ ‘overkill’

By Valerie Richardson
The Washington Times

Sending scores of armed agents along with helicopters and dogs to confront an elderly Nevada rancher over grazing fees may seem like overkill, but critics say it’s not inconsistent with the federal government’s recent approach to environmental enforcement.

The simmering truce between the Bundys and the Bureau of Land Management comes after high-profile raids last year by armed federal agents on small-time gold miners in tiny Chicken, Alaska, and guitar makers at the Gibson Guitar facilities in Tennessee.

That doesn’t include more subtle threats, such as recent efforts by the Obama administration to raise grazing fees or pressure permit holders to transfer their water rights as a condition of renewal, said Ryan Yates, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau.

“Some have called it a culture of intimidation,” Mr. Yates said. “It’s issue after issue, threat after threat. It’s becoming harder and harder to keep those operations in business.”

The atmosphere was quiet but tense Tuesday at the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville, Nev., just days after Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze pulled federal agents off the property and returned about 400 head of cattle to rancher Cliven Bundy.

A BLM spokesman said the agency would work to resolve the dispute “administratively and judicially,” but so far Bundy supporters aren’t buying it. Patrols of armed supporters remained at the ranch on the lookout for the return of BLM agents, instead of heeding calls from lawmakers to disband and return home, according to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.

That may be in part because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned Monday that “it’s not over.”

Meanwhile, former Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, told Fox News he worried the federal government could hit back hard at the Bundy ranch.

“The other thing is, governments don’t give up their power easily, and they may well come back with a lot more force, like they did at Waco with the Davidians,” said Mr. Paul, referring to the deadly 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound. “So I don’t know which way it’s going, but so far, so good.”

Examples of hostile behavior by federal agencies prompted an Oct. 29 oversight hearing by a House Natural Resources subcommittee on “Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies.”

Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican, said in his opening statement at the time that the hearing would feature “a number of troubling cases in which federal land managing agencies have employed abusive tactics to extort rural families into giving up property rights or to bully farmers and ranchers into making concessions to which the federal agency had no legal right.”

While Mr. Bundy has been criticized for failing to pay his grazing fees, a move made after federal efforts to limit grazing after the desert tortoise was listed as threatened, the BLM’s over-the-top response has helped turn him into a sympathetic figure among rural Westerners.

“I think there are many people who object to someone not paying grazing fees but who also find the federal government’s behavior in this situation in particular, and with regard to management of the enormous federal estate in general, to be increasingly indefensible — intimidating, destructive and cruel,” said Heritage Foundation senior adviser Robert Gordon.

As Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval put it shortly after the BLM’s arrival, “No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation, which currently exists, nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans.”

Nevada Rancher: ‘The Founding Fathers Didn’t Create A Government Like This’

Rancher Cliven Bundy outside his ranch house on April 11, 2014 west of Mesquite, Nev. (George Frey/Getty Images

CBS Las Vegas
AP

RENO, Nev. — A Nevada rancher said Monday he’s trying to determine if federal agents damaged his cattle when the animals were rounded up then released in a showdown with angry protesters over a decades-long dispute about rangeland rights.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze said the agency backed off to avoid a potentially violent situation over the weekend.

However, he vowed to go to court to collect more than $1 million in back grazing fees he says Cliven Bundy owes for trespassing on federal lands since the 1990s.



Bundy, whose family has operated a ranch since the 1870s southwest of Mesquite a few miles from the Utah line, does not recognize federal authority on the land that he insists belongs to Nevada.

On Saturday, the bureau released about 400 head of cattle it had seized from Bundy. The operation had been expected to take a month to collect as many as 900 cattle.

The animals were freed after armed militia members joined hundreds of states’ rights protesters at corrals outside Mesquite. Bundy said they were united in defense of their constitutional rights.

“They have faith in the Constitution,” Bundy told a local Las Vegas radio station on Monday. “The founding fathers didn’t create a government like this.”

Bundy told KLAS-TV that American citizens helped get his cattle back.

“There is no deal here. The citizens of America and Clark County went and took their cattle. There was no negotiations. They took these cattle. They are in possession of these cattle and I expect them to come home soon,” Bundy told KLAS.

The BLM’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board was meeting in Sacramento on Monday on the broader issue fueling the conflict over how to divide the scarce forage on mostly dry lands across the West between livestock, wild horses and wildlife.

Wild-horse protection advocates say the government is rounding up too many mustangs while allowing sheep and cattle to feed at taxpayer expense on the same rangeland scientists say is being overgrazed. Ranchers say the government refuses to gather enough horses in the herds that double in size every five years.

Advocates on both sides accused the board of not addressing their concerns.

“Americans want wild horses on our public lands,” said wild horse advocate Bonnie Kohleriter. “You cattlemen and wildlife people are special interest groups. … You need to stop attacking the wild horses, attempting to diminish their numbers, and make resources available to them.”

Debra Hawk, a biologist representing the Wildlife Society, said the BLM’s failure to cut the number of wild horses is harming other species that rely on the land. She criticized the agency for indicating it may not continue the horse roundups, saying the BLM should “utilize all methods available” to cut the population.

“Not conducting roundups will result in further degradation of native ranges, harming native wildlife and plants,” and is better for the health of native horses, she said.

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said she spent much of the past week with the Bundy family and helped feed some of the calves that were returned over the weekend.

“It’s going to take a lot to revive the calves that were nearly dead when they were returned to the Bundy Ranch because they had been separated from their mothers during the roundup, and a few most likely won’t make it,” said Fiore, a Republican from Las Vegas. “It’s time for Nevada to stand up to the federal government and demand the return of the BLM lands to the people of Nevada.”

Horse protection advocates and other critics of livestock grazing on federal land said the government’s suspension of the roundup sends the wrong signal to law-abiding ranchers who secure the necessary grazing permits to use the land.

The BLM “is allowing a freeloading rancher and armed thugs to seize hundreds of thousands of acres of the people’s land as their own,” said Rob Mrowka, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s backing down in the face of threats and posturing of armed sovereignists.”

BLM spokesman Craig Leff said the agency will work to resolve the matter “administratively and judicially” but planned no further public comment on Bundy’s case.

“The gather is over,” he said in an email.

In 1998, BLM secured the first of a series of court orders that found Bundy’s cattle in trespass, rejecting his argument the land in an area known as Gold Butte belonged to the state.

BLM filed a new complaint in U.S. court in Las Vegas in May 2012 seeking an injunction to prevent what it called Bundy’s continued trespassing, and Judge Lloyd George issued another order last July authorizing the agency to impound the cattle.

Flashback: Sen. Reid Breaks Ground for Nevada Solar Farm Near Bundy Ranch

The senator’s plan for solar farms in Nevada wasn’t just limited to the shelved project near Laughlin

(From RIGHT to left) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) joins Moapa Band of Paiutes Chairwoman Aletha Tom, First Solar CEO James Hughes, LADWP director of power system planning and development Randy Howard, and the Moapa Band of Paiutes Tribal Council to break ground on the 250 MW Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project. (Photo: Business Wire)

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was exposed last Friday as the mastermind behind the Bureau of Land Management’s persecution of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, can be seen in this March 2014 photo breaking ground for a new solar farm near the Bundy Ranch, emphasizing that the senator’s plan for solar projects in Nevada wasn’t just limited to the shelved solar farm near Laughlin.

Signaling the first day of construction of the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project, which is about 35 miles from the Bundy homestead in Bunkerville, Nevada, Sen. Reid joined representatives from the Moapa Band of Paiutes, executives from First Solar, Inc. and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for the groundbreaking ceremony on March 21.

“First Solar is thrilled to celebrate this important milestone with Sen. Reid and distinguished guests, and honored to work with the Moapa Band of Paiutes on this landmark project,” Jim Hughes, the CEO of First Solar, said at the time.

The development of solar farms just like this one is exactly why Sen. Reid was using the BLM, whose director is Reid’s former senior advisor, to push Bundy out of the Gold Butte area his family has worked for over 140 years.

As we revealed last Friday in an article that became the #1 news story in the world for 24 hours, the BLM specifically stated that it wanted Bundy and his cattle out of the area as part of the agency’s “regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone.”

The BLM attempted a cover-up by deleting documents exposing the plan from its web site, but fortunately contributors at the Free Republic were able to save them for posterity.

Others have attempted to whitewash the situation by suggesting that the solar farm development was only limited to the shelved 2012 deal between Sen. Reid and Chinese-owned ENN Energy Group in Laughlin, Nev., but by reading the BLM’s own documents it is quite obvious that this is not the case.

“The BLM’s current action builds on the Western Solar Energy Plan, a two-year planning effort conducted on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Energy to expand domestic energy production and spur development of solar energy on public lands in six western states,” the BLM announced in a March 14 press release. “The Western Solar Energy Plan provides a blueprint for utility-scale solar energy permitting in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah by establishing Solar Energy Zones with access to existing or planned transmission, incentives for development within those Solar Energy Zones, and a process through which to consider additional Solar Energy Zones and solar projects.”

“The Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone is the first of several pilot plans to be developed by the BLM,” the press release added.

In summary, the BLM, acting under Sen. Reid’s corrupt interests, wants Cliven Bundy out of the 600,000 acre Gold Butte area so the agency can use the land for future solar projects and de facto buffer zones surrounding the solar farms.

This is crony capitalism at its finest and Bundy’s supporters, who numbered in the thousands, knew it.

Why The Feds Chickened Out On A Nevada Ranch

Show down: Ranchers on horseback and protesters gather at the BLM camp to try to claim back cattle the agency has already rounded up. (Reuters)

Kevin McCullough
Townhall.com

Let me obliterate a bit of confusion here: the Obama administration attempted to go to war with a rancher in Nevada. Let me amplify a little bit of truth: They tucked tail and have returned home. And let me add a bit of clarity: they had no choice!

As the nation began to become familiar with the plight of the family of Cliven Bundy, many of us harkened back to another standoff in which the Federal government attempted to bully it's outcome: Waco, Texas and the Branch Davidian massacre.

It is telling that in the Nevada case the feds pulled out so quickly, given all they had indicated they were willing to do to resolve the matter to their satisfaction. They had set up a perimeter around the Bundy's family land, ranch, and home. They had brought in extra artillery, dogs, and snipers. They were beginning the process of stealing more than 300 head of cattle that did not belong to them.

They did so--or so we were told--for the reason of protecting the desert tortoise. But then it was revealed that the Bureau of Land Management had shot far more desert tortoises than the Bundy cattle had even possibly destroyed. We were told they did it because the Bundys had broken federal laws by not paying what amounted to retroactive grazing fees to the federal government. But the Governor of the state of Nevada told us that Bundy had paid every ounce of state tax, met the state requirements, and their family had been improving the property more than 100 years previous.

Finally we were allowed to know the connection between a communist Chinese wind/solar power plant and its connection to that senator named Harry Reid. Evidently a plan had been hatched to use the Bundy property for a solar farm and instead of paying the Bundys, someone, somewhere in the administration believed it was easier to just take what they wanted.

That approach is at least consistent with the readily documented abuse of eminent domain where the government for any number of reasons--few of them valid--have taken to taking what doesn't belong to them. Americans then watch as it gets handed over to some multi-national corporation for the "cause" of the "greater good."

There were a few specific reasons why the feds chickened out in the Nevada desert though.

1. Technology - As the Bundy family members were abused, cameras captured it. Not television network cameras, but dozens of cell phone video devices that gave witness to a Bundy aunt being shoved to the ground, and a Bundy son being tazed. All of this while threatening protestors with dogs, brandished weapons and vehicles was captured, uploaded and made viral to the watching world.

2. States' Rights - As the drama unfolded it became clear that the Governor of Nevada, and the Sheriff of Clark County knew that Cliven Bundy's family had not only not broken any state law regarding the land, but that they had gone to the enth degree to insure compliance with Nevada laws on the property. The Governor and the Sheriff, to their credit, did not favor the feds as a more powerful party in the conflict. Though there must have been pressure from Senator Reid's office, the administration via the Bureau of Land Management, and local officials who were bought and sold like the Clark County Commissioner who told those coming to support the Bundys to have "funeral plans in place."

3. Grassroots Response - As other incidents have transpired in the past, the amount of time it took honest information to reach the grassroots and thus the response to the action came to slow. In the massacre in Waco, most of the nation had been sold a single narrative from the limited media outlets covering the events. Similarly the events surrounding the abduction of Elian Gonzales from his family in Florida and deportation to Cuba took place in such a response vacuum that by the time Americans knew the real story, the damage was done. With the Bundy ranch, internet outlets by the dozen had competing information with the limited "official news" being released by the networks, and in most cases the alternative sources had it correct and usually a full day or so ahead of the news cycle. By the time afternoon drive hit, when the network news rooms in New York were preparing their first stories, talk radio audiences had already been dialing their elected officials in Washington demanding action.

The majority of Americans saw through the efforts to spin the story in Nevada. Couple that with the leadership failures that the American people view the administration responsible for, from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act, all it took was the unedited video of federal agents tazing Bundy's son, followed by his pulling the wires from his chest and continuing to stand his ground for there to be comparisons made to the American revolution.

It's also important to note that merely pulling back from the Bundy property hasn't settled the matter for the American people either.

The feds have stolen 352 head of cattle, and will not confirm or deny if they euthanized some or all of them. Recompense must be made. And to be candid, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see if a few ambitious law firms don't try to convince the Bundy family of the validity of litigation.

Fortunately for the American people, the feds were not able to ultimately bully a simple rancher, not for a tortoise, a solar power plant, or a dirty Senator and his administration.

We owe the Bundy family a great deal of thanks for standing tall.

For if the federal government is allowed to do it with one, then there will be nothing stopping them from doing it again.

Nevada ranch standoff could leave dirt on Harry Reid’s reputation

Longtime aide of senator is new at helm of Bureau of Land Management

By Valerie Richardson
The Washington Times

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said little as federal agents seized and then released cattle last week from the Bundy ranch, but there is little doubt that the highly charged episode was threatening to become a political headache for the Nevada Democrat.

The Bureau of Land Management is headed by former longtime Reid aide Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the Senate as BLM director on Tuesday, just as federal authorities descended on the cattle ranch outside Mesquite, Nev.

Mr. Kornze issued a statement Saturday saying that the bureau would return the cattle and withdraw its agents from the ranch as a result of safety concerns after clashes between law enforcement and the Bundy family’s growing legion of supporters.

“Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public,” Mr. Kornze said.

“We ask that all parties in the area remain peaceful and law-abiding as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service work to end the operation in an orderly manner,” he said.

Speculation spiked in recent days over Mr. Reid’s connection to the BLM episode, in which federal contractors seized about 400 head of cattle from 68-year-old rancher Cliven Bundy over his refusal to pay an estimated $1 million in grazing fees over 20 years.

“It was likely pressure from upstairs, rather than weapons from the field, that changed his mind on the matter,” the liberal group Americans Against the Tea Party said in an online post. “Fact is, Harry Reid probably didn’t want his name attached to the biggest civilian massacre in U.S. history right before election season.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper, criticized the BLM’s handling of the situation in a Friday editorial, saying the “federal government is all about intimidation and overreach.”

The grazing dispute was escalating quickly. Law enforcement reportedly used a stun gun twice on Mr. Bundy’s son Ammon during confrontations, and hundreds of supporters were driving in from out of state to demonstrate against the cattle confiscation.

Cliven Bundy has argued that his family’s cattle have grazed on the land for more than 100 years, before the BLM was founded and before a federal decision was issued to restrict grazing to protect the desert tortoise. He also has said any fees would be due to local government, not federal agencies.

“The people have the power when they unite,” Ammon Bundy told reporters last week, the Review-Journal reported. “The war has just begun.”

Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, criticized the BLM’s cordoning of “free-speech areas” near the ranch and warned the agency to “be mindful of its conduct.”

“The safety of all individuals involved in this matter has been my highest priority,” Mr. Sandoval said in a Saturday statement. “Given the circumstances, today’s outcome is the best we could have hoped for. I appreciate that the Department of the Interior and the BLM were willing to listen to the concerns of the people of Nevada.”

On Sunday, BLM spokesman Craig Leff told The Associated Press that “the door isn’t closed” to an administrative or judicial resolution with the Bundys.

Mr. Kornze, 35, worked as a senior policy adviser on land-use issues in Mr. Reid’s office from 2003 to 2011 before joining the BLM. He was confirmed by the Senate on a 71-28 vote after serving as the agency’s principal deputy director, even though Republicans had qualms about his lack of experience compared with past BLM directors.

During the confirmation hearing Dec. 17, Mr. Reid called his former aide “just perfect for the job,” even as Republicans noted that previous BLM directors Bob Abbey and Jim Caswell were career federal land managers each with more than 30 years’ experience.

“I remain concerned you lack the experience required for the position of BLM director,” Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, told Mr. Kornze at the hearing, according to the Review-Journal.

Mr. Reid made no public statement after Mr. Kornze announced the BLM’s decision.

Sen. Dean Heller, Nevada Republican, urged those who had gathered in support of the Bundy family to return home.

“The dispute is over, the BLM is leaving, but emotions and tensions are still near the boiling point, and we desperately need a peaceful conclusion to this conflict,” Mr. Heller said in a Saturday statement. “I urge all the people involved to please return to your homes and allow the BLM officers to collect their equipment and depart without interference.”

Feds Back Down In New Bundy Standoff, Agree to Release Cattle

Epic confrontation “like something out of a movie”



Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Infowars.com

In an epic standoff that Infowars reporter David Knight described as being like “something out of a movie,” supporters of Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy advanced on a position held by BLM agents despite threats that they would be shot at, eventually forcing BLM feds to release 100 cattle that had been stolen from Bundy as part of a land grab dispute that threatened to escalate into a Waco-style confrontation.

Despite the fact that Bureau of Land Management officials agreed to cease their operation to seize Bundy’s cattle after a massive public backlash, Bundy demanded that Sheriff Douglas Gillespie disarm BLM officials and return his stolen cows.

When this didn’t happen, hundreds of Bundy supporters, including cowboys on horseback, descended on a nearby cattle pen outside of Mesquite where the seized cows were being held.

In a tense standoff, armed BLM feds, backed up by at least one SWAT team, threatened to shoot at Bundy supporters if they marched any closer to a line of vehicles.

Infowars reporter David Knight, who was at the head of the march, described the scene as like the moment from V For Vendetta when the military is forced to stand down.

Despite threats such as “one more step and you’re dead,” the protesters continued their slow march towards BLM agents as bullhorns blared.

Refusing to back down, the protesters marched straight past the armed men and towards the cattle pen.

Sheriff Gillespie eventually appeared to inform Bundy supporters that the BLM had finally caved and agreed to release the 100 cattle they had seized that were inside the pen.

After around 30 minutes, Bundy supporters saw the cattle being released about a mile away in the distance.

It cannot be overstated how much of a gargantuan victory this represents for the American people in their battle against big government tyranny.

“The people have the power when they unite,” Ammon Bundy told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “The war has just begun.”

‘The war has just begun’: Bundy supporters mobilize, aim to take back confiscated cattle

By Kellan Howell
The Washington Times

Just an hour after U.S. Officials called off the roundup of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle due to safety concerns, hundreds of ranchers and supporters — some armed — have mobilized with the intent to free cattle confiscated by the federal agents.

After Bureau of Land Management director Neil Kornze gave the order to cease herding the cattle, Mr. Bundy demanded that all national park service employees working on the cattle roundup operation be disarmed before 10:45 a.m. the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Mr. Cliven said that Clark County sheriff Doug Gillespie had one hour to comply, and demanded the firearms be brought to him.

By 11 a.m. members of the crowd stepped forward and began grouping around the cattle corral outside Mesquite, they recited the pledge of allegiance, and prayed. Some protestors held signs reading “this land is your land” and “We teach our children not to bully. How do we teach our government not to be big bullies?” The Review-Journal reported.

In a statement released Saturday morning, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval said safety was his highest priority and that he appreciated the BLM for listening to people’s concerns.

Protestors demanded to know where the 500 cattle already gathered by the BLM were being held.

Ammon Bundy, Cliven Bundy’s son, was near tears describing the round up. He told reporters that BLM agents came in, took backhoes to the land and shut down water lines to prevent the cattle from drinking.

He also said that the halting of the roundup wouldn’t have been possible without the supporters.

“The people have the power when they unite,” Ammon told reporters, the Review-Journal reported. “The war has just begun.”

BLM ends Bundy cattle roundup, citing safety issues

BLM State Director Amy Lueders defends her agency's actions the day before backing down on the cattle roundup.

KSNV
MyNews3.com

BUNKERVILLE -- The gathering of rancher Cliven Bundy's cattle in northeast Clark County has been stopped by the director of the Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM announcement came as Bundy was supposed to meet with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie about the week-long dispute.

There was no confirmation of a deal between Bundy and the BLM that may have also involved the sheriff. Bundy refused to speak with a News 3 reporter who went to his ranch this morning.

The BLM had been using contract cowboys to round up Bundy's 900 head of cattle that have been grazing over 600,000 square acres in northeast Clark County for more than 20 years without his payment of grazing fees.

As of Friday they had secure 389 cattle from the Gold Butte area, nearly 90 percent of them marked with the Bundy Ranch brand.

The BLM said it decided to end the roundup because it was concerned about the safety of its workers and the public. BLM Rangers and Bundy family and supporters of were involved in a scuffle. Cliven Bundy's son, Ammon Bundy, was tased twice by federal agents. Another Bundy relative was thrown to the ground by an officer.

Safety concerns grew daily as Bundy supporters and militia-type people continued to arrive from around the country.

All of the public land closed for the cattle roundup have been reopened, the BLM said today.

New BLM Director Neil Kornze made the following statement this morning:

"As we have said from the beginning of the gather to remove illegal cattle from federal land consistent with court orders, a safe and peaceful operation is our number one priority. After one week, we have made progress in enforcing two recent court orders to remove the trespass cattle from public lands that belong to all Americans.

"Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public.

"We ask that all parties in the area remain peaceful and law-abiding as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service work to end the operation in an orderly manner.

Ranching has always been an important part of our nation’s heritage and continues throughout the West on public lands that belong to all Americans. This is a matter of fairness and equity, and we remain disappointed that Cliven Bundy continues to not comply with the same laws that 16,000 public lands ranchers do every year. After 20 years and multiple court orders to remove the trespass cattle, Mr. Bundy owes the American taxpayers in excess of $1 million. The BLM will continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially."

Gov. Brian Sandoval reacted to the BLM decision with a statement.

"The safety of all individuals involved in this matter has been my highest priority," the email said. "Given the circumstances, today's outcome is the best we could have hoped for. I appreciate that the Department of the Interior and the BLM were willing to listen to the concerns of the people of Nevada."

Militias head to Nevada rancher’s standoff with feds: We’re not ‘afraid to shoot’

By Cheryl K. Chumley
The Washington Times

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s decades-long battle against the federal government over grazing rights has heated to the point where militia groups have joined in and taken up spots against the feds who’ve circled his land — and talk is, they’re not afraid to open fire.

A spokesman for the one of the militia groups said as much to local 8 News Now: I’m not “afraid to shoot,” he said.

Margaret Houston, Mr. Bundy’s sister and a cancer survivor, said at a town hall gathering this week that the situation “was like a war zone” and that she felt “like I was not in the United States,” The Daily Mail reported.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal described it this way: “Serious bloodshed was narrowly avoided,” in a story about how dogs were unleashed on a woman who was pregnant while the rancher’s son was hit with a taser.

On Tuesday, armed Bureau of Land Management agents stormed Mr. Bundy’s property, escalating a court dispute that’s wound for two decades over the rancher’s refusal to pay for grazing fees.

Mr. Bundy’s view is that he owns his property — that it’s been in his family’s hands for centuries — and he doesn’t have to pay for his own 900-head of cattle to graze on the 600,000 acre Gold Butte property.

The government, meanwhile, says the land belongs to it, and agents have swooped and circled, closing off roadway access to the property and flying helicopters overhead the family’s home.

Following the agent occupation, one of Mr. Bundy’s sons, Ammon Bundy, was tasered by a federal official to the point that blood seeped through his shirt, video showed. Ms. Houston, meanwhile, said she was roughed up and manhandled by authorities, telling town hall attendees that she was “hit from the back; it was like a football tackle” and that “they just took me and threw me down to the ground,” The Daily Mail reported.

BLM, for its part, says the situation only turned violent when protesters who rallied to the family’s defense kicked a K-9 unit officer.

Now militia groups are on the scene, promising to help the Bundys keep up the fight.

“This is what we do, we provide armed response,” Jim Lordy, with Operation Mutual Aid, told the local broadcast station. “They have guns. We need guns to protect ourselves from the tyrannical government.”

Mr. Lordy also said “many more” militia groups are coming to the site to join in the Bundy family defense.

“They all tell me they are in the process of mobilizing as we speak,” another member told the Review-Journal.