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Posts tagged ‘Federal Bureau of Land Management’

Bundy Family Says ‘Euthanized’ Cattle Shot Multiple Times


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/23/Bundy-Family-Accuses-BLM-Of-Unnecessary-Shots

by 23 Apr 2014

Ammon Bundy, son of embattled Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, said some of the dead cattle the family found after the federal government backed down from a tense standoff over a week ago had been shot as many as five times – seemingly more than necessary to kill the animals.

“Well we know that two bulls were shot. And the one that they threw up in the mountain, Nickelcrick, he had a shot from above. He was shot by helicopter, but then he had four other shots to him as well. It looks like a fun shoot,” said the younger Bundy adding, “One hit him in the head and it ripped his whole face up. It was almost like a fun shoot. I didn’t know how or what was going on, but then one was definitely from the top down. Its pretty good proof that what happened in the helicopter that did that one.”

A BLM contractor hired to round up the animals did not respond to a voicemail about the allegations. A spokesman for the BLM did not respond to a request for comment.

Helicopters are often used during cattle roundups and their use for this activity is controversial. The Associated Press reported in June of 2013 that the BLM was taking comments and suggestions about its proposal to use helicopters to help gather wild horses over the next two years. Bundy described how he thinks the helicopter roundup killed Bundy Ranch cattle.

“Since Saturday they were in gathering this cattle by helicopter. They were pushing them all. When you do it that way, it was 90 degrees that week—in the 90’s, those cattle run too hard and it’s very difficult on them and they’ll overheat and die, but also this is calving season right now,” said Bundy. “So these cows are aborting their calves and they’re also separating their newborn babies from their mothers.”

Bundy believes that is the reason why the ranch has at least 27 calves that they know of that were separated from their mothers. At this point, the ranch staff and the family can’t find the mothers to the calves.

“So there’s that issue, because its just inhumane how they gathered the cattle. We do it through a trapping process. It’s very humane to them,” he said.

Several of animals inside the enclosures at the Bundy ranch appeared to have their hides torn and limped along due to injuries to their legs. Bundy claims the injuries to the cattle were caused by “contract cowboys” dragging the animals.

“We actually have a bull in the corral that was drugged pretty hard and he’s hurt and he’s still alive. They just drugged him and his skin came off and then with these animals that are in these graves, all of them were drugged,” said Bundy.

Bundy went further, “Now if they were drugged before they were alive or dead we don’t know that. They were all drugged. That’s why autopsies needed to see if there’s dirt in their lungs and whatever else is going on —that type of stuff is needed to see how they actually died—if they were suffocated. That’s another thing. You put a rope around a cow’s neck and you pull them, well obviously, they’re going to choke.”

Bundy explained that cow’s neck won’t usually break, but when he and the staffers at the ranch rope a cow, they put the rope around a leg and then around its neck.

“That way,” Bundy said, “You can get it in there and you don’t choke it, but these guys just choke it. And I bet a good amount of ‘em were just killed by rope. They just suffocate them.”

A BLM official sent a statement to Breitbart News on Monday confirming the Department did “euthanize” two Bundy cows and two Bundy bulls. One cow and one bull, according to the official, died during the round up.

“The Bundy branded bull that was euthanized posed a significant threat to employees during the gather. The Bundy branded cow ran into a fence panel injuring its spine and was euthanized,” the official wrote.

“Where is the Leftist PETA organization now? If a Republican were in office right now they would be screaming for their head on a plate. But because their Leftist/Marxist/Socialist partners are behind this, PETA’s silence is deafening.”

Jerry Broussard

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The Drums of “Civil War” Are Growing Louder.


50,000 Strong – Oklahoma Militia Pledges to Support Cliven Bundy

http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/04/oklahoma-militia-pledges-50000-troops-support-cliven-bundy/#tHJ4qZ0FpwwgrDW2.99

“You’ve got a bunch of people there trying to take the law into their own hands and they shouldn’t be doing that. And the Bureau of Land Management is not government-owned, it’s publicly owned. There’s a big difference there. I blame both sides. “-Jim Inhofe, Republican U.S. Senator from Oklahoma

I’m not even sure what Jim Inhofe is talking about. The Bureau of Land Management has a government website (www.BLM.gov) and is part of the Department of Interior. As far as being publicly owned, if he is trying to say that the BLM answers to the public then that is supposed to be the case with our entire federal government, of which he is part. I am unsure what “government-owned” is supposed to mean, quite frankly, because “We the People” own this government.

Period.

On Easter Sunday, a story broke from the “Sooner State” that the main stream media was, as usual, not quick to cover. It seems that the Oklahoma Milita has pledged their support to Cliven Bundy and vows to take up arms against the BLM if needed. Several members of the Oklahoma Militia are already in Nevada and the members at home are seeing a similar BLM land grab developing along the Red River.

News Channel 4-Tulsa reports:

OKLAHOMA CITY – A land dispute in Nevada between rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government began decades ago.

The Bureau of Land Management says Bundy was allowing his cattle to graze illegally which triggered a round-up of about 400 head of cattle last week.

Bundy claims his family’s cattle have grazed on the land since 1870 without interference from the government.

However, the Bureau of Land Management says Bundy hadn’t paid his grazing fees since 1993.

Over time, officials say those fees have amounted to more than $1 million.

As authorities herded the cattle, a standoff was sparked with members of the militia.

Organizers with the Oklahoma Militia say they have members in Nevada who claim Bundy’s cattle were unlawfully herded by the bureau.

The Oklahoma Militia says it is made up of nearly 50,000 volunteers.

Members say they are taking Bundy’s side and fear this practice could spread to the Sooner State.

Scott Shaw said, “Evidently in America we don’t actually own the property anymore if you ever did.”

Shaw says Oklahoma Militia members are ready to take up armsagainst the federal government if needed.

Nearly 50,000 members? That’s a lot ofrifles.

Militia

There are a lot of elected servants out there who are not understanding the seriousness of this situation. This is not about stuffy meetings and government red tape. We are not operating by the rules of bureaucrats anymore. The American people have seen another case of lawlessness and intimidation, and they have reacted.

I guess Harry Reid can add 50,000 new domestic terrorists to his growing list.

The federal government needs to be extremely thoughtful of how they might proceed with the Bundy situation because things could explode with the slightest misstep.

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Western States Begin to Push Back


http://www.tpnn.com/2014/04/21/western-states-begin-to-push-back/

April 21, 2014 By

Western-Federal-Land-Grab
 
Despite the fact that the states created the federal government, not the other way around, the federal government greedily claims ownership of over half (52%) of the land in the western states.

In fact,  the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 17) authorizes the U.S. government to own land for very limited purposes outside of Washington, DC, none of which include protecting the environment, preserving the “desert tortoise,” or because some politician wakes up one morning desiring to confiscate more land from states.

On the heels of the Bundy Ranch standoff, now some western states are pushing back against federal government land encroachment, as Friday representatives from several western states (UT, ID, NM, AZ, NV, WY, OR, and WA) met for a a “Legislative Summit on the Transfer of Public Lands.”

“Those of us who live in the rural areas know how to take care of lands,” said Montana state Senator Jennifer Fielder at a news conference. “We have to start managing these lands. It’s the right thing to do for our people, for our environment, for our economy and for our freedoms.”

According to the Congressional Research Service, 93% of the land the feds claim to own is located in among the 13 western states. Feds claim ownership of enormous parts of several western states, including:

  • Nevada –           81%     Governor Brian Edward Sandoval, Republican
  • Alaska –            62%     Governor Sean R. Parnell, Republican
  • Utah –                67%     Governor Gary Richard Herbert Republican
  • Oregon –           53%     Governor John Albert Kitzhaber, Democrat
  • Idaho –              62%     Governor Clement Leroy “Butch” Otter, Republican
  • Arizona –         42%      Governor Jan Brewer, Republican
  • California –     48%     Governor Jerry Brown, Democrat
  • Wyoming –      48%     Governor Matthew Hansen “Matt” Mead, Republican
  • New Mexico – 35%     Governor Susana Martinez, Republican
  • Colorado –       36%     Governor John Wright Hickenlooper, Jr., Democrat
“There is a distinct difference in the way federal agencies are managing the federal lands today,” Montana state Senator Jennifer Fielder explained, saying that the agencies formerly did a good job managing the lands, but are “hamstrung now with conflicting policies, politicized science, and an extreme financial crisis at the national level. It makes it impossible for these federal agencies to manage the lands responsibly anymore.”

The dispute at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada may have provided fuel to an already fiery debate over federal usurpation of state land. 

At the public lands summit, Utah House Speaker said, “What happened in Nevada [Bundy Ranch] is really just a symptom of a much larger problem.”  

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Feds accused of leaving trail of wreckage after Nevada ranch standoff


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/16/feds-accused-leaving-trail-wreckage-after-nevada-ranch-standoff/

By

Published April 16, 2014

FoxNews.com

damage

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.

William La Jeunesse joined FOX News Channel (FNC) in March 1998 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based correspondent.

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BLM: We are Worried Cliven Bundy Might Have Prescriptive Rights & He Might Use that Defense in Court


http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/04/blm-worried-cliven-bundy-might-prescriptive-rights-might-use-defense-court/#Ve5WO1KuA5ldgFxJ.99

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In this ongoing story surrounding cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, there are a series of questions media has ignored. For instance, in the 20 years Bundy hasn’t been paying his fees, why hasn’t he been taken to court? Why this year, spend nearly $1,000,000 of taxpayer money to round up 400 cattle that ultimately have to be returned? Why didn’t the BLM just place a lien on the cattle rather than attempting to take them by force and then auction them off? The Bureau of Land Management has suffered a huge black eye this week because of their response to the Bundy situation. Perhaps though, there is a reason the BLM chose force over the courts.

In an exclusive interview with Benswann.com, Montana cattle rancher Todd Devlin says the BLM is now considering new ways of dealing with the Cliven Bundy situation. Devlin is not just a Montana cattle rancher, but is also a County Commissioner in Prairie County Montana. He has also worked with the Department of Interior, having taught workshops for the agency in the past. Monday, Devlin reached out to his contacts in the Department of the Interior to find out why the Bureau of Land Management has refused to work with Bundy rather than simply attempting to run over him.

So what exactly are prescriptive rights? Prescriptive right to property is an easement that gives some one the right to use land owned by someone else for a particular purpose. An example is using a path through Party A’s land to get to your land; a prescriptive easement is allowed which gives the user the right to get to his land through A’s property.

In most states, if a trespass or use of land occurs regularly for at least 5 years without the “owner” of the land taking legal action, prescriptive rights come into play. Because Bundy stopped paying his grazing fees to the BLM in 1993, but continued to use the land for over 20 years, it is possible he now has prescriptive rights to the land. That might explain why the BLM has not taken this issue to court and never bothered to file a lien against the cattle.

Granted, there have been court actions over the years. In 1998, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against Bundy, ordering him to remove his cattle from the federal lands. He lost an appeal to the San Francisco 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet, the “trespass cattle” remained on the BLM land. In fact, it took until August of 2013 for a court order to be issued saying Bundy had 45 days to remove his cattle from federal land. 15 years went by from the time of the last court case over the cattle until the BLM attempted to remove the livestock.

Of course, Bundy has not made the claim that he will not pay the fees, he simply says he will not pay those fees to the BLM because he doesn’t recognize federal authority over the land. Bundy has said that in the past that he would pay fees to Clarke County, Nevada, though Clarke County has refused to accept them. The BLM has insisted that Bundy owes $1.1 million dollars in grazing fees for his trespass cattle.

“The actual number is probably around $200,000. The $1.1 million claimed by the BLM is probably mostly interest and penalties for trespass cattle.” says Devlin, who goes on to say that it is unlikely that Clarke County would be able to collect those penalties.

“Why don’t you just let him pay them there (Clarke County)? I got a call back from the liaison saying ‘Yes, pursue it.'” Devlin reached out to contacts in Nevada to get that process moving forward. If that were to happen, Clarke County could collect the grazing fees and if it desired to do so could hand those fees over to the BLM.

Finally, Devlin says instead of allowing the situation with Bundy’s cattle to grow completely out of control, the BLM could have simply placed a lien on the cattle in the first place. Of course, that lien might have been rejected in court if Bundy were able to demonstrate those prescriptive rights. Then again, the courts so far have sided with the government; therefore, it is even more baffling why the lien wasn’t placed on the livestock.

Days after the BLM has claimed they will stand down, they are now reportedly considering a lien on the cattle,

“I asked why you didn’t put a lien against the cattle?” Devlin asked the BLM. “They hadn’t thought about that, but they are considering it now.”

Read more at

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