Posted on 04/08/2014 4:07:26 PM PDT by sergeantdave
For 20 years, a tough-as-leather Nevada rancher and the federal government have been locked in a bitter range war over cattle grazing rights.
This weekend the confrontation got worse, when the feds hired contract cowboys to start seizing Cliven Bundy's cattle, which have been grazing on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government officials brought a show of force that included dozens of armed agents in SUVs and helicopters.
Bundy, 67, who has been a rancher all his life, accuses BLM of stampeding over on his rights.
“This is a lot bigger deal than just my cows,” Bundy told FoxNews.com. “It’s a statement for freedom and liberty and the Constitution.”
The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The vast and rugged land is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998. Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right.
“For more than two decades, cattle have been grazed illegally on public lands in northeast Clark County,” the BLM said in a statement. “BLM and (the National Park Service) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. Impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is an option of last resort.”
But Bundy said he has grazed cattle on the land for decades, and his father and father's father did long before his 1,000 cattle roamed the area. He has long defied orders from bureaucrats he says are bent on running him out of business.
Just before the round-up began this weekend, Bundy said federal agents surrounded his 150-acre ranch. His son was arrested on Sunday in an incident involving the agents....
More at link.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Break out the Navy SEAL wannabes on the BLM “SWAT” team.
How can you have a total of 150 acres, and call it a cattle ranch?
I plan on winning the lotto, and while gathering information on how much land I would need to own to buffer myself from neighbors and feds, I found out that most farmers couldn't turn a profit on less than 300 acres.
Ranchers need thousands of acres, not mere several hundreds.
I sort of understand leased acreage unimproved property rights.
But whether the owner(s) of the leased property are government or private citizens,the lease terms will always change when the previous contract is up for renewal, and before a new legal lease begins.
I don't need to be a cattle ranch expert to know that 150 acres is not large enough to qualify as more than a subsistence level cattle ranch.
Am I missing something?
Mea Culpa. Since this is public land, Mr. Bundy has some real problems.
The obvious downsides are you have to bring in the cattle well before slaughter to switch them to a different feed. The other downside is that you have losses of cattle. Plenty of cow carcasses littering the landscape in Nevada.
From reading the article it looks like his ranch is 150 acres but the land is 6,000 acres that the cattle graze on.
FMCDH(BITS)
In the west, it is fairly common for a rancher to have a few hundred acres. They rent pasture from private owners or buy grazing ‘rights’ from the government. Those grazing rights can cost hundreds of thousands, and the government reserves the right to reduce or end them without warning.
Nevada is around 85-90% owned by the government. Thus most ranchers there have to deal with the feds for grazing.
A friend of mine has a couple thousand sheep and several hundred head of cattle. He juggles grazing times and amounts all the time. He leases land in 3 states and uses grazing on BLM land as well. He grows hay on his land to feed his animals for brief periods between his rentals.
The Bureau of Land Management spends about $1 Billion a year administering public lands. It spends about three times as much administering an acre of grazing land as it charges in rent.
You just can’t have American cows eating the Chinese Premiere’s grass.
We have to pay our creditors somehow...we will be selling off “public” lands.
So it is a usual and typical business expense for ranchers to “pay a fee for grazing rights”.
For some reason, this rancher decided he was extra special, and didn’t have to pay for his cattle to feed on land he does not own....
It seems the feds were extraordinarily patient with him, and his free ride is now, finally over.
I am known to dislike the feds, but as to this case....I equally dislike civilian theives...
Frankly I see the media focus on this ranch now, as a distraction against the recent media focus on another rancher in a different state, who is REALLY being abused by the feds.
After reading further information gained from other resources, I find that the Feds drastically changed the “rules” in the early 1990s, and appear to have ran a concerted effort to shut down ranchers and grazing rights to protect a turtle that may or may not have been artificially introduced into the area.
So the rancher has been fighting the Feds in Federal courts, over an outrageous Federal agency abuse for two decades.
Now I know what I was missing from this story.
The full facts and the real truth.
Yes, I should have known better.
“I find that the Feds drastically changed the “rules” in the early 1990s”
That would be CONGRESS, and it does have the Constitutional right and obligation to make those decisions. If you don’t like them, then campaign to change them. But letting someone run cattle unrestricted on desert land is a great way to destroy the land. It was tried before, and it failed.
Do you have any information otherwise?
If the tortoise is covered by the Endangered Species Act - a law I think ought to be repealed - then the government agency has a requirement to comply. Congress could at any time delist a species. The failure to do so is a failure of Congress and a failure of the President - which is not surprising, but there you have it. We cannot ignore laws while out of power and then expect others to obey them if we win power.
In any case, refusing to pay grazing fees on the basis that the US government controls no land is total nonsense. You might as well refuse to pay your taxes because you are a free citizen of Nevada and not the US - one will get you as far as the other.
This is all about a deadbeat rancher who paid grazing fees for 45 years and then stopped because he claims the US owns no land. He is an idiot, and he has been freeloading for years. Time to seize his cattle and sell them to pay his debts.
So the rancher paid for grazing rights for decades, but suddenly stopped-Why?
Is the grazing allotment really 250 square miles?
And did the “new” 199X something Federal rule, not law, suddenly and inexplicably limit the herd to 150 head of cattle per 250 square miles?
Who is this “we” you talk about?
I'm an equal opportunity basher of unionised and corrupt Fed employees, whether elected, appointed, or the obnoxious hired help, whenever and wherever they abuse the extremely limited powers they swore an oath to uphold.
It's not a spectator sporting game at stake here, it is our lives.
If you have no facts to add, and merely want everyone else to STFU...I wonder why you are here on this website.
“If you have no facts to add, and merely want everyone else to STFU...I wonder why you are here on this website. “
Actually, I’m one of the few dealing in facts. The rancher, by his own admission in court, stopped paying the federal government for grazing when he decided the federal government owns no land, and he is a citizen of Nevada not the USA.
Unlike the media reports, I’m going off the letters the guy wrote to the BLM and what he testified to in depositions to the court. You can speculate all you want, but the guy told the BLM & court why he was doing what he is doing.
Good luck finding a court that ‘recognizes’ that a citizen of Nevada is not a citizen of the USA...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.