If they care, then they may want to get educated.
This is 100% federal land. It never was state land. I’m sorry if some of these folks have come to depend on exploiting public property for their livelihoods, but they have no more right to graze then I do to chop a tree down at my local post office. And if I showed up with guns to do it, I’d probably expect to get shot.
Public land? What was the government doing with this “Public” land?
Your ignorance is astounding. Grazing rights existed before “public lands” existed and in fact before the United States existed. They are paid for and sold from owner to owner and the government was never the owner.
Here is a good link to a full (long) story on the Hammond ranch issue for those that want to get educated. The land was settled and developed by ranchers, then 30 years later it was turned into a bird sanctuary by Teddy Roosevelt. The government has continued to acquire land over time.
Excerpts:
The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle. These ranchers developed a state of the art irrigated system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north.
In 1908 President Theodor Roosevelt, in a political scheme, create an “Indian reservation†around the Malheur, Mud & Harney Lakes and declared it “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birdsâ€. Later this “Indian reservation†(without Indians) became the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
In 1964 the Hammonds’ purchased their ranch in the Harney Basin. The purchase included approximately 6000 acres of private property, 4 grazing rights on public land, a small ranch house and 3 water rights.
By the 1970’s nearly all the ranches adjacent to the Blitzen Valley were purchased by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.... The expansion of the refuge grew and surrounds to the Hammond’s ranch. Approached many times by the FWS, the Hammonds refused to sell. Other ranchers also choose not to sell.
During the 1970’s the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), took a different approach to get the ranchers to sell. Ranchers were told: “grazing was detrimental to wildlife and must be reducedâ€; 32 out of 53 permits were revoked and many ranchers were forced to leave. Grazing fees were raised significantly for those who were allowed to remain. Refuge personnel took over the irrigation system claiming it as their own....
.... The study showed the “no use†policies of the FWS on the refuge were causing the wildlife to leave the refuge and move to private property. The study showed the private property adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge produced four times more ducks and geese than the refuge. The study also showed the migrating birds were 13 times more likely to land on private property than on the refuge. When Susie brought this to the attention of the FWS and refuge personnel, her and her family became the subjects of a long train of abuses and corruptions.
In the early 1990’s the Hammonds filed on a livestock water source and obtained a deed for the water right from the State of Oregon. When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found out the Hammonds obtained new water rights near the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge, they were agitated and became belligerent and vindictive toward the Hammonds. The US Fish and Wildlife Service challenged the Hammonds right to the water in an Oregon State Circuit Court. The court found the Hammonds legally obtained rights to the water in accordance to State law and therefore the use of the water belongs to the Hammonds.*
In August 1994 the BLM & FWS illegally began building a fence around the Hammonds water source. Owning the water rights, and knowing that their cattle relied on that water source daily, the Hammonds tried to stop the building of the fence. The BLM & FWS called the Harney County Sheriff department and had Dwight Hammond (Father) arrested and charged with “disturbing and interfering with” federal officials or federal contractors (two counts, each a felony). Dwight spent one night in the Deschutes County Jail in Bend, and a second night behind bars in Portland. He was then hauled before a federal magistrate and released without bail. A hearing on the charges was postponed and the federal judge never set another date.
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The article continues with continued stuff thrown at the Hammonds by the Feds.