ULTIMATELY, HOWEVER, all the protections in the world don’t mean a whole lot if they aren’t enforced. Just as he has for more than three decades, Cliven Bundy continues to run his cattle illegally on public lands in southern Nevada, where they gnaw on sparse vegetation and trample sensitive soils in desert tortoise habitat. And in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, BLM Range Management Specialist Melissa Shawcroft has recorded 36 grazing trespass incidents in the past year alone. Instead of rounding up the cattle or their owners, however, the agency slapped Shawcroft with a 14-day suspension for “discourteous” behavior after she questioned her bosses’ lack of gumption, once again proving that bullshit is as easy to find in agency offices as it is underneath the hooves of livestock.
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