'Plaintiff need not apply for a permit ...'

(8/2001 - Lyon County, Nevada) - Lyon County District Court Judge Robert Estes issued a temporary restraining order at 2:50 p.m. Aug. 7, blocking the auction of 62 head of cattle rounded up by the BLM from Ben Colvin's range near Goldfield, 140 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Judge Estes set a hearing in the matter for Aug. 21.

Auctioneer Gary Snow of the Fallon Livestock Auction then attempted to sell off a further 78 cattle belonging to Colvin's neighbor, Jack Vogt. Following an announcement by chief state brands inspector Jim Connelley that he couldn't guarantee clear title to the disputed cattle, however, and in the face of loud protests from 50 ranchers representing themselves as members of the Nevada Committee for Full Statehood, warning "It's still stolen cattle!" the auctioneer received no bids. The appropriated cattle remain in their pens, dining at taxpayer expense.

The federal agents took the cattle off Colvin's allotment in late July, contending he's in violation of regulations pertaining to grazing permits. Colvin agrees the land is overgrazed. But he argues the culprits aren't his remaining handful of cows, but rather the 1,300 wild horses and burros the BLM allows to swarm the countryside until "It's pathetic; they're just skin and bones."

I talked to Colvin on the phone last Sunday.

"According to them I'm permitted 980 head on my allotment, but about 1980 I took all but 500 head off because of the wild horses and burros, and that's all we ran through 1995.

"Then they came in with this 'Rest & Rotation' plan. Each quarter we were supposed to move the herd to a new quadrant, and then for an entire quarter, March 1 through June 1, they wanted all the cattle off the land, and I had nowhere to go with 'em.

"This is the one time of year when, if they're going to do good, they're going to gain weight and breed back. The other three quarters they're just in a holding pattern or they go downhill."

In other words, to comply with the new, revised "permit restrictions" which Colvin is now accused of violating with his minimal 62 head, Colvin would have had to take his cattle off the land when they're skinniest -- at the end of the long winter -- and sell them at garage sale prices, making no use of the land during those very months when the spring rains make it most productive. Then he would have to buy all new cattle in June, put them out in the summer heat on land they had no idea how to graze, and allow the survivors to lose weight for nine months before selling them off again.

A ranch management plan which surely could only be dreamed up in Washington.

Meantime, "the wild horses were to stay year round. There's no way in the world I could run my cattle in behind the horses; they use up all the water and feed.

"In 1998 the BLM counted over 1,300 head of burros and horses on my allotment alone. ... I was just overrun by horses. I could see if they kept goin' that way some of them was gonna have to die, so I took all of my cattle off the land but 50.

"From Oct. 15, 1971, when they passed the Wild Horse and Burro Act to 1990, they'd only removed 250 to 300 head." Finally, in 1997 "They removed all they could. Before that they would turn all the horses back out that was nine years old or older, and try to adopt out the rest. ... Well 1997 finally was the first time they shipped 'em all that they got in the corral, they finally did something they should have done, more by accident than on purpose.

"They were just skin and bones, they were pathetic. ... Sure enough we had a real dry year, and they had 10 or 20 times more horses on that land than they should have. ..." Horses were dropping in their tracks and had to be shot where they lay, Colvin recalls. "And they say they're the ones that should be managing the land."

Judge Loren A. Smith of the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington City, in his March 1996 opinion in the case of Pine Creek rancher Wayne Hage, ruled, "This court determines that plaintiff need not apply for a permit if ... the process is so burdensome as to deny the plaintiff's property rights," Colvin points out.

Nor is there any requirement that he apply for a permit to run cattle on his own adjudicated allotment, Colvin insists. "Any of these allotments that have been adjudicated, they're not public lands any more, that's like a deed that you can take to the bank and borrow against. I've been here 33 years; I bought the allotment from Andy H. Anderson, who's still up there next to Yellowstone. I came here the day before Thanksgiving 1968.

"I might lose those cows up in Fallon. But I'm a firm believer once you don't sign that permit application, they don't have any jurisdiction over me."

Because the BLM operated with no warrant, no court order, no due process, "To me it's still stealin' cattle," Colvin insists. "I filled out a complaint with both the Esmeralda and the Nye Country sheriffs. But then politics came into play, I guess. ... The attorney general's office came down hard and threatened the county attorneys."

Where do Colvin and the state's few remaining cattle ranchers go from here?

"I don't want to end up in federal court, I'm trying different things to avoid that, because I think once you go in there you're doomed from the start. I didn't want to run these cows so I could spend my days in court. ...

"I keep tellin' people if I went down there and jumped in your car and drove it up here they'd be on me in a flash; it's a property rights matter. But they're above the law. I have a lot more respect for the Mafia than I do for the BLM, because at least they know they're crooked, and they admit they're crooked."

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal. He is the author of "Send in the Waco KIllers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998."