Apr 9, 2014
Armed federal agents deployed last week to northeast Clark County, Nev., for what can only be described as a major escalation in a decades-long standoff between a local cattle rancher and the U.S. government. Cliven Bundy, the last remaining rancher in the southern Nevada county, stands in defiance of a 2013 court order demanding that he remove his cattle from public land managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management. "I have raised cattle on that land, which is public land for the people of Clark County, all my life. Why I raise cattle there and why I can raise cattle there is because I have preemptive rights," he said, explaining that among them is the right to forage.

"Who is the trespasser here? Who is the trespasser on this land? Is the United States trespassing on Clark County, Nevada, land? Or is it Cliven Bundy who is trespassing on Clark County, Nevada, land? Who's the trespasser?"

Claiming that all other options have been exhausted, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. National Park Service responded to Bundy's inflexibility on the issue by calling on federal agents and contract cowboys to restrict access to the public land and to confiscate Bundy's "trespass cattle."

"Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the West," the Bureau of Land Management stated on its website about the case.

"The Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. An impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is now being conducted as a last resort," it added.

Federal employees and contractors have so far impounded approximately 234 of Bundy's estimated 900 "trespass cattle."

The restrictions on the land are expected to stay in place until May 12. Earlier news reports stated that federal officials were considering auctioning the cattle to buyers in nearby counties in Utah. However, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman told TheBlaze Monday that the agency has no plans to ship impounded cattle for auction "in the near future." http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/... http://alternatemediabroadcastnetwork...

The 67-year-old veteran rancher, who has compared the situation to similar confrontations with government officials in Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas, told TheBlaze that his family has used land in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area since the late 1800s.