by #NoellePhillips in The #DenverPost:

"A veteran employee of the Bureau of Land Management in the San Luis Valley filed a whistleblower complaint Monday, saying her bosses are failing to enforce livestock grazing rules on public lands and are jeopardizing the ecosystem along the Rio Grande River...

"The Bureau has the power to impound livestock or levy fines, but managers are timid because they fear another armed standoff similar to the ones led by the Bundy family in Oregon and Nevada, Shawcroft said. In 2014 in Nevada, Cliven Bundy, his family and an armed militia organized a standoff with federal agents who had come to round up the rancher’s cows that were illegally grazing on federal land."

https://www.denverpost.com/2023/08/21/blm-whistleblower-illegal-grazing-rio-grande-river/

#BureauOfLandManagement #BLM #whistleblower #livestock #grazing #PublicLand #FederalLand #RioGrande #ClivenBundy

@markjacob It's been more than 9 years since the Bundyites used guns to halt the round-up of #ClivenBundy's illegally grazing livestock. - the govt backed down that day to avoid bloodshed and hasn't been back. (It's been 30 years that Bundy has been illegally grazing on public lands.) "Working on it" isn't good enough on either front, and in the meantime, more people are feeling inspired to flout the law. (See https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/01/armed-occupation-of-malheur-refuge-was-dress-rehearsal-for-violent-takeover-of-nations-capitol-extremist-watchdogs-say.html). It's depressingly glacial.