RENO, Nev. (AP) — 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," he told KDWN-AM in Las Vegas on Monday. "The founding
fathers didn’t create a government like this."
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.
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Associated Press writer Juliet Williams in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this report.
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