Cowboy Express gallops into Utah to protest federal land managers

SALT LAKE CITY — A group of horseback riders drew stares, honks and a few handshakes and high-fives along Redwood Road Thursday, hooves clattering on pavement in a protest ride of federal land management policies. The Utah trek of the Grass March Cowboy Express hit Salt Lake City and continued east up Parleys Canyon, with Tooele County Commission Chairman Bruce Clegg and Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, riding in tandem. With them they carried a mail pouch sporting a letter demanding the resignation of a BLM field office manager who ordered grazing reductions in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and petitions from rural Utah counties citing a long list of grievances on federal wild horse management, endangered species protections and land use policies. "It is not working," said Ivory, the sponsor of Utah's 2012 Transfer of Public Lands Act, which demands the federal government cede title to certain lands within Utah's borders. "We have a federal government that is so over-extended and over-indebted that it is restricting the access and diminishing the health and productivity of our federal lands, and something has got to change. What we are saying is that we be given the same treatment as states east of Colorado." A copy of Ivory's HB148, complete with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's signature, is being carried back to Washington, D.C., as well as petitions from Box Elder, Washington and Iron counties. The coast-to-coast ride began Sept. 26 in Bodega Bay, California, and is slated to end 2,800 miles and 20 days later at the doorstep of Congress...more