NFT: Nevada Ranch Emergency

But the guy is grazing his cattle on land he pays nothing for.

became a protected environment for an endangered species. Thus, they have limited the permit rights to graze on the federal land.

his cattle are pretty much feral and uncared for. The farmer makes no attempt to manage the land and many of the waterholes have become overrun with cow shit. It is not the most hospitable of places to begin with.

It sounds like, one, this has been a longstanding dispute between the Federal government and the ranching family and two, the family has been illegally grazing their cattle on Federal land without a permit. They are in the wrong. Striking agents of the government is clearly not the way to improve the situation.

filming what is going on from public roadways. They should absolutely be allowed to do this. The Feds have put up signs in some public areas that say something to the affect that the first amendment is prohibited in some of the public areas. That is a problem imo.

behavior and decisions by some fraction of the field agents out there, which has polarized the situation beyond where it needed to go.

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start

that Reid is trying to annex this for Chinese solar farm development.

...

I recently was hanging out with some ranchers from Nevada - it was crazy. They literally have the whole town come out for drinking parties - fights, sex, everything spills out of the bar and into the main streets. A county sheriff pulls into town and can't/won't do anything about it.

Truly the lawless west that you used to hear about is still going on. You literally would not believe some of the stories I heard.

I thought this was about the Bunny Ranch...maybe one of the customers kicked Dennis Hof in the nuts...

The family in CO who bought a parcel of land up a mountain side and the county is claiming it through eminent domain, "just because" and plans to then trade it to the us forestry service in return for better land near town. I'd love to know if there is another side to that story because from the sound of it, it is pure land piracy by their local gov with collusion from the feds.

Again, more than this specific rancher who may or may not be in the right, I'm more concerned with his comment that there used to be many ranchers but they've been driven away / put out of business due to federal harassment. I'd like to know more about that.

rights after the discovery of an endangered species.

In comment 11616409 D HOS said:

Quote:

The family in CO who bought a parcel of land up a mountain side and the county is claiming it through eminent domain, "just because" and plans to then trade it to the us forestry service in return for better land near town. I'd love to know if there is another side to that story because from the sound of it, it is pure land piracy by their local gov with collusion from the feds.

Legacy of the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court.

and I'm skeptical that this rancher is completely in the right. Although I have no problem believing the US bureau of land management or whomever can be a little heavy handed and no-compromise.

The species in question are desert turtles. The BLM, the same organization that is claiming that as their basis just got done killing a few hundred of these turtles some time last year.

The BLM is also collecting some serious cash leasing land in Nevada for fracking. Possibly connected?

species habitat by an unqualified individual can be quite deadly.

Qualified individuals can help the population growth path of a species even if it requires killing certain elements of that species.

for a federal agency to sort out. science wise. I would not rule out stupidity or greed entirely.

sooory

on staff, as well as contract out to experts in the field...

but the Federal government is a real issue out here in the West that I was never aware of when I lived back East. Take a look at the first map on the right on this link. The red areas are what the Federal government has confiscated, er, owns. Nevada is almost all red. In Utah we have trouble raising money to fund our schools because the lands that have most of the mineral rights have all been taken by the Feds. If you remember when Bill Clinton had a big funder named Riady from Indonesia, he confiscated the Escalante area of Utah as Federal property. That area has the best reserve of sulfur- free coal in the world. Second best is Indonesia. So there's little love lost with the BLM.
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I thought you meant the Mustang Ranch for a sec.

Makes me appreciate New Jersey.

even if people may not be especially sympathetic to this guy, even if he seems like a curmudgeon and maybe an asshole, the federal government owns a ton of Nevada and the West more generally (Alaska included). That means basic decisions about land use are made at a national (or at least a national bureaucratic) rather than a local level. It's something difficult for a lot of us to comprehend as outside of national parks, military bases and the like very little east of the Mississippi is owned by the feds.

handled much better by both sides. The government totally overreacted and escalated the situation with their almost gestapo like tactics. While I don't claim he is right, from what I understand this man's family has been grazing their cattle in this area for decades so they do have some precedent here for whatever that's worth.

Nobody comes out of this smelling like roses.
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understand. The rancher has not paid the lease fees for over 20 years and owe a million in back fees. They refuse to pay. The government has tried to work with them.

Now I'm a pretty much fuck the government guy when it comes to using our lands and playing by bureaucrats stupid rules. Cattle leases out there are probably $.25 and acre per year.

Fuck the turtle bull crap. BLM just trying to get it's lease money.

I have no problem with that.