One more nail in the coffin of land rights: Fed seize cattle from Nevada rancher

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Feds move in on Nevada rancher's herd over illegal grazing

For 20 years, a tough-as-leather Nevada rancher and the federal government have been locked in a bitter range war over cattle grazing rights.

This weekend the confrontation got worse, when the feds hired contract cowboys to start seizing Cliven Bundy's cattle, which have been grazing on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government officials brought a show of force that included dozens of armed agents in SUVs and helicopters.

Bundy, 67, who has been a rancher all his life, accuses BLM of stampeding over on his rights.

“This is a lot bigger deal than just my cows,” Bundy told FoxNews.com. “It’s a statement for freedom and liberty and the Constitution.”

The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The vast and rugged land is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998. Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right.

The key? Bundy's land has been in his family for 130 years. He was there before the federal government. They drove 52 other ranchers out of business the same way they're trying to run him out, by trying to regulate and limit private land use as public property. They can label the land anything they want, it's his land. Desert tortoise or no desert toroise, the cattle present no danger to a reptile of any sort. The little beasts don't live in the grasses, they live in borrows.

Oh, by the way, it is the "Center for Biological Diversity" that is pushing the feds on this issue. you want to read a scary "mission statement"? Go read that one.