This is long. I live in Las Vegas, NV. Local news gives more context and has been covering different angles of this for a long time. I've seen a lot of distortion in national media and it annoys and depresses me.
Lord Elwrind
If the tortoises are in constant decline, why the Feds kill 1000 of them? ...Instead of killing so many, why not disperse them?
I remember this because it was bandied about all through 2013. There are several factors in why the funding dried up, the population got too high, and a lot have to be euthanized if the facility shuts down
:
1. The funding was largely dependent on $550/acre fees on housing developers building in their habitat as Las Vegas crept into farther urban sprawl. Vegas was hit hard by the housing bubble bursting and those funds dried up.
2. The center is a partnership between the San Diego Zoo and multiple government agencies, some of whom have had other funding cut. I know there were multiple centers at some point but if I understand correctly they have been shutting down one by one over the years, each closure stressing the remaining centers.
3. The center in question is caring for more animals than it initially intended because irresponsible idiots keep either getting a license to own tortoises legally or grabbing tortoises from the desert illegally, breeding them in their back yards, spreading them around as pets or ending up with too many to handle on their own, and people then abandon those pets. A local paper cites ~1000 abandoned pet tortoises a year. Pet tortoises can bring diseases and genetic abnormalities in. That's eating up resources they initially intended to go toward research, rehabilitation, and release. In November legislation was enacted limiting pet owners to one tortoise at a time. It should have been done long ago. They're also looking into petitioning to get the tortoise de-listed before the conservation plan runs out in 2031, but that will incur an additional cost for more biologists to do researchy things and the economy hasn't recovered enough to warrant it. Right now the focus is on pooling the thoughts of all the states taking part in tortoise conservation to try to cut costs.
A selection from local papers:
01/2013: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/tortoise-center-wants-out-shelter-business
11/2013: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/clark-county-officials-lament-spending-157-million-desert-tortoises
12/2013: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/dec/03/county-officials-seek-cheaper-way-protect-desert-t/
And here's an AP article I can now only find republished on HuffPo:
08/2013: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/25/desert-tortoise_n_3813133.html
Quote:
scientists examined the facility's 1,400 inhabitants to find those hearty enough to release into the wild. Officials expect to euthanize more than half the animals in the coming months in preparation for closure at the end of 2014.
...Former pets make up the majority of the tortoises at the conservation center, where they spend their days staring down jackrabbits and ducking out of the sun into protective PVC piping tucked into the rocky desert floor.
Most of these animals are not suitable for release, either infected with disease or otherwise too feeble to survive.
Also, since I saw it mentioned earlier that tortoises supposedly eat cow dung: Not sure how that would work. They're herbivores, not detritivores. They eat the plants the cattle eat, especially mesquite grass and wildflowers. New spring growth in plants is how they get most of their moisture. If they are spooked-- such as by cattle or herders and dogs traipsing about-- they dump their bladders as an alarm/defense, losing the vast majority of their fluid volume and endangering their lives.
Also, there was a program in California in which Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert wanted to expand and airlifted ~670 tortoises to another location. They suspended the program due to a high mortality rate. The hypothesis is that the western drought curbed plant growth and general moisture, which curbed the rodent population, which prompted coyotes to hunt tortoises, plus translocated tortoises seem to wander around a lot more in an attempt to find their lost burrows. So predators snag them as they wander about when they usually wouldn't be.
source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2008/10/army-suspends-r.html
Other salient points with citations:
1. re: The claim the BLM's the ones who started the armed aggression:
Las Vegas Sun article, 9/23/2013: 'Lone rancher is prepared to fight feds for land'
Now a showdown looms, one with a hint of possible violence. Officials say Bundy and his son are illegally running cattle in the 500,000-acre Gold Butte area, a habitat of the protected desert tortoise. In July, U.S. District Court Judge Lloyd George ruled that if Bundy did not remove his cattle by Aug. 23, they could be seized by the BLM. That hasn’t happened — yet — and the rancher insists his cattle aren’t going anywhere.
He acknowledges that he keeps firearms at his ranch and has vowed to “do whatever it takes” to defend his animals from seizure.
“I’ve got to protect my property,” Bundy said as Arden steered several cattle inside an elongated pen. “If people come to monkey with what’s mine, I’ll call the county sheriff. If that don’t work,
I’ll gather my friends and kids and we’ll try to stop it. I abide by all state laws. But I abide by almost zero federal laws.”
...
His defiance led to visits by Department of Homeland Security officials and local sheriff’s deputies, who interviewed Bundy’s neighbors to determine any possible threat.
...
Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie visited the rancher last year but has resisted enforcing federal deadlines,
declining to put his deputies in danger over a herd of cattle. Gillespie called Bundy in September with the names of a few lawyers to contact.
...
Collins added that Nevada officials are studying whether to petition the federal government for local control over a wide swath of land that includes the area Bundy is fighting over.
“Cliven doesn’t want to be a martyr — the guy who shot it out with the feds, Waco-style,” he said. “I just hope the government isn’t stupid enough to go pick a fight with him.”
...
Bundy admitted his own spread runs to just 160 acres, far less than he needs to keep 500 head of cattle alive.
...
Carol Bundy said her husband is not a violent man, just a person who will protect what he owns. For that matter, so is she.
“I’ve got a shotgun,” she said. “It’s loaded and I know how to use it. We’re ready to do what we have to do, but we’d rather win this in the court of public opinion.” source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/sep/23/lone-rancher-prepared-fight-feds-land/
Bundy's been singing six ways from Sunday that he'll offer armed resistance for months now. Sending suits in to politely ask that he give them his cattle without defense is ridiculous.
2. I've poked around for local news on the wind turbine angle. I can't find anything more recent than 2011. The Nevada angle does not seem to be for a wind turbine farm but for an assembly factory to make turbines for a farm in Texas. Last I can find they had a temporary facility in Henderson (FYI: a southeast suburb of Las Vegas).
Quote:
A-Power plans to construct its first US turbine assembly facility, which is expected to be located in Nevada. A-Power is currently leasing a 36,000 square foot temporary facility in Henderson, Nevada. A-Power is seeking to assemble wind turbines in the United States that are intended to supply Spinning Star Energy LLC's ("Spinning Star" ) proposed wind energy power plant in west Texas and to other future customers in North and South America. A-Power presently expects that it will need to secure external financing for the wind turbine assembly facility. The availability of such external financing is not assured. source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/a-power-chairman-jinxiang-lu-updates-us-senator-harry-reid-on-planned-wind-turbine-assembly-plant-in-nevada-120962999.html
The only article I can find with more detail is from 2010. They want to build a 320,000-square-foot facility. If that was all laid out in a single story that would be only ~7.35 acres. It's not like they want to build a city. Anything I can find says a site has not been chosen.
Congress let the Production Tax Credit for wind power expire at the end of 2013 so some wind projects got squeezed hard-- if construction hadn't begun by 1/1/14, they couldn't get the credit which cut their available finances. So in the absence of more recent evidence of progress I question whether the venture remained solvent. It was so built up in the press as a source of jobs that letting news of it being scuttled die quietly is something I can see happen.
source: http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=US13F
3. A local CBS affiliate went digging to fact check Bundy's "my family's been here since before the federal government therefor he has a right to stay" type declarations.
* The ranch is in Bunkerville.
* The Bundys who originally came out west settled in a town in Mohave County, AZ as early as 1900 and are credited with the foundation of Bundyville aka Trumbull in AZ. His grandfather was born in NE. His father was born in AZ and lived there until the 1940s.
* No Bundys were in Bunkerville in the 1930s and 1940s, but his grandparents the Jensens lived and had a farm in nearby Mesquite. His grandmother is listed in a census as born in NV in 1901, but I can't find anything that says where. Lived in Mesquite though.
* Federal grazing districts were initiated in the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934.
* The Las Vegas area grazing district was established in 1936.
* The BLM was established in 1946, the year Cliven was born.
* Bundy's parents purchased the ranch in question in 1948.
* The earliest construction of the ranch was in 1951.
* The Bundys didn't start grazing cattle in the contested land until 1954
* While the article is unclear when they started paying grazing fees, they did so until 1993.
* His ranch is 160 acres. The federal land is 500k acres. He has valid claim to the 160 on his deed, not the 500k the feds control.
sources: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25302186/an-abbreviated-look-at-rancher-cliven-bundys-family-history
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25301551/bundys-ancestral-rights-come-under-scrutiny
The sentiment I'm personally running into in Vegas is "Bundy is an entitled, tax-dodging idiot playing chicken with the feds. This situation is a ticking time bomb."
Essentially: If you don't want to pay grazing fees to someone then don't build up a herd of cattle larger than you can support with land you lawfully own.
{{{edit to correct the size of the federal land from 500 acres to 500k acres}}}
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