'Range war' with BLM: Hundreds rally for Nevada cattle rancher

Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after authorities began to seize his cattle from federal land. Protesters had responded to an alert that promised: "Range war begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We're going to get the job done!" Federal officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise. A federal judge ruled last year that if Bundy did not remove his cattle, they could be seized by the Bureau of Land Management. That seizure began Saturday. Bundy and his supporters remain unbowed. "We have hundreds of people here standing behind us," said Bundy's daughter Bailey Logue, 22, during a telephone interview Monday from the family ranch, as a rooster crowed in the background. "We're letting these federal people know that the Bundy family is not the only ones who care what happens to this land." A father of 14, Bundy insists that generations of his family have ranched and worked this unforgiving landscape along the Virgin River since the 1880s. He says government over-regulation has driven scores of fellow ranchers out of business in sprawling Clark County, leaving him the last man standing. Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the BLM in southern Nevada, said Bundy "owes the BLM and American taxpayers more than $1 million in grazing fees and trespass fines." "He has been running more than 900 cattle while he only has the authority to graze 150," she said Monday. "He has also made a number of inflammatory statements, saying that he will do what he needs to do to protect his livestock. When such threats are made, the federal government has the responsibility to protect public safety." The Bundy family vows the range war will continue. "My ancestors created the rights to that land 100 and some odd years ago," Bailey Logue said. "And we're not giving them up."...more 

"inflammatory statements"...that's the same excuse they used to bring in armed employees against Kit Laney.