Ammon Bundy verdict puts federal land agencies on alert
October 30, 2016 at 7:00 AM, updated October 30, 2016 at 7:01 AM
Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, was so sure about convictions for Ammon Bundy and others on trial for taking over his agency's bird sanctuary that he'd already written a "victim's letter" to consider at sentencing.
So when jurors Thursday found Bundy and six others not guilty of impeding his agency's workers after they seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, Ashe said he took it personally.
In an interview Friday, Ashe said federal officials remain determined to prosecute new occupations. And in a blunt internal email, obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive, he said his agency "must send a strong message of deterrence to those who would seek to replicate the occupation or perpetuate the toxic myths that sustained it."
In interviews and other communiques issued in the wake of the verdict, the executives who manage much of America's federal public lands offered the first hint at how the occupation and its outcome would shape their approach to their work.
They advised public workers to be alert for potential trouble. They said they would do all they could to protect their employees and national parks, refuges and other federal holdings.
They also emphatically resolved to press ahead with policies for managing public lands that depend on working well with local interests. Since the occupation, Harney County has been held up as a model for how ranchers, environmentalists, business owners and government staff can work together.
But security is top of mind at the moment for federal officials.
"We're in a heightened state," Ashe said. "We are concerned that the verdict in this case could embolden people."
Neil Kornze, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, told his staff in a memo that employees must be "clear-eyed about the potential impact" of the' Malheur verdict and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said she's worried about "potential implications for our employees and for the effective management of public lands." ...
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/post_15.html