Horses are dying as Feds, preservationists close in on Bundys

In 2014, Cliven Bundy led an armed insurrection against the federal government after grazing his cattle on  public lands without a permit from the Bureau of Land Management.

Then, in 2019 Democratic then-New Mexico Representative Haaland led a House subcommittee hearing on anti-government extremism emphasizing that the violent ideologies expressed by the Bundys were spurred by white elected Republicans in the Mountain West. Now, at the direction of Secretary Haaland the BLM has even hired a security specialist to outline strategies to defend federal employees and public property against welfare ranchers and white supremacists. 

Tracy Stone-Manning is President Joe Biden's choice to lead the BLM. But today, advocates are piling on the BLM after a disastrous horse gather that killed thirty one horses in Bundy's back yard. 

There have been numerous opportunities to corral Bundy, who owes at least a million dollars to American taxpayers. "A court could issue a lien on his property and seize his cattle when they go to auction. Or federal agents could use a bench warrant to arrest Bundy, quickly and quietly, in the parking lot of a Costco or Walmart," says Richard Spotts, a former BLM field officer.

The Western Watersheds Project filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington D.C. against the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies as well as Clark County, accusing them of failing to uphold a plan that allowed for significantly more development in the Las Vegas Valley in exchange for mandatory conservation measures in the area now home to Gold Butte National Monument. “Between the impacts of Cliven Bundy’s thirty years of trespass livestock grazing in Gold Butte National Monument and the conversion of ungrazed desert habitats to solar farms, the desert tortoise and other species are getting cheated out of their side of the Habitat Conservation Plan bargain,” Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, said in a statement. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]