A former Bureau of Land Management staffer who retired last week after 32 years with the agency issued a scathing exit memo warning that the 2014 armed standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has frightened bureau leadership away from stopping illegal grazing.
The result is that untold acres of federal rangelands are being damaged by livestock from neighboring private lands illegally grazing on federal lands, Melissa Shawcroft wrote in the memo sent Thursday to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.
Shawcroft’s memo — which touches on a host of issues such as staff shortages and policies from managers that limit how often range specialists can monitor on-site grazing — was circulated by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER.
