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February 5, 2016 CapitalPress.com Rancher inds himself in middle of standoff By CRAIG REED For the Capital Press Craig Reed/For the Capital Press Kurt Spencer is shown at his ranch headquarters near Roseburg, Ore., but he also runs cattle on ranches in Harney County. He has experience in working with both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to obtain grazing permits. ders refuge land, said the stop at the irst was “scary.” “They were very profession- al and kind, but when you have guns kind of pointing at you, it is scary,” Spencer said in describ- ing the scene. “They (oficers) were very, very cautious. They asked us to get out and keep our hands free. They were FBI, but Wildlife refuge employees ready to return to work By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press As an occupation drags on, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice employees don’t know what they’ll ind when they return to work at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Gavin Shire, Fish and Wildlife public affairs chief, said he has no information about conditions at the ref- uge headquarters south of Burns, scene of the armed occupation by Ammon Bun- dy and followers. “We have received re- ports that the illegal occupi- ers accessed federal records locked away on the refuge and have evidence of them accessing government com- puters, but we know little more than that at this stage,” Shire said in an email. News reports and social media posts indicated the occupiers fiddled with office computers and took down a section of barbed wire fence. One occupier was arrest- ed in Burns after he drove a government vehicle into town. Another used refuge equipment to clear a new roadway. Shire said the refuge con- tains items and places of “immense cultural signifi- cance” to the Burns Paiute Tribe. “The tribe has expressed their outrage at the callous disregard the occupiers have shown for their cultural her- itage,” Shire said by email. “We share that outrage and will seek and exercise appro- priate recourse at the appro- priate time.” Another agency spokes- man, Jason Holm, was par- ticularly angry about artifacts being handled and the road construction. He called it “de- plorable” and said the road- work might have damaged culturally signiicant sites. “We share in the outrage of the Burns Paiute Tribe,” he said in a statement. “This is disgusting, ghoulish be- havior.” Holm also described the occupiers’ statements as “vaporous pablum.” Bundy, his brother, Ryan Bundy, and six others were ar- rested Jan. 26 when FBI, Ore- gon State Police and other law enforcement agencies stopped their vehicles north of Burns. An outspoken Bundy follow- er, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot and killed by police during the stop. Video re- leased by the FBI shows Fini- cum reaching into his jacket at least twice before he was shot by an OSP trooper. Since then, several other occupiers were arrested as they trickled out of the refuge. Four occupiers remain at the refuge and have insisted they be allowed to leave without being charged with crimes. Employees will repair and rebuild as necessary when they return to work at the wildlife refuge, the agen- cy said in a news release. USFWS has 17 employ- ees at the refuge who hav- en’t been able to work for they looked like Army person- nel. There were snipers around. “It felt like a checkpoint in a foreign country,” he continued. “There was no room for error. They asked for ID and ran our license plate. They asked me if I had a gun and I told them I did and where it was in the rig. I told them to help themselves as far as looking, but they ac- looking for you to make a mis- take rather than helping you. BLM coaches me on what to do while the Forest Service is getting more inicky. But I’ve always done what they’ve asked me to do.” The Bureau of Land Man- agement is the land manager of 3.97 million acres, or 60.6 per- cent of Harney County. Private ownership totals 1.6 million acres, or 24.9 percent. The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manage a combined 711,231 acres, or 10.9 percent. The state of Or- egon owns 197,417 acres and other government agencies own the remaining 36,507 acres. Spencer said he has talked to some of his ranching neigh- bors and he said there is most deinitely a split between them on how they viewed the occu- pation of the refuge headquar- ters since Jan. 2. He described the people as good farmers, good ranchers and solid people, but with different opinions. “Some know we have issues with the federal management, but they wanted the protesters to go home,” he said. “On the other side, there were ranchers going there (the refuge) and having dinner with them and taking them supplies. “We have an issue, but these were protesters from a radi- cal standpoint,” Spencer add- ed. “The people from Harney County, from Oregon, from the U.S., we’re all in it for preserva- tion of the land. We need to ind common ground. We’ll do it.” Spencer said the gener- al consensus of the Harney County residents was that the issue would be resolved peace- fully with no casualties. “Everybody was dismayed that somebody actually got hurt,” he said. “We were hop- ing there would be a peaceful ending.” Spencer said he hopes there will be some good that eventu- ally comes out of the situation. “Let’s sit down with some people and talk about some of these issues,” he said. “It hasn’t been a good situation, so let’s ind some good in it.” BUYING 6” and UP Alder and Maple Saw Logs, Standing Timber a month. The refuge also hosts researchers, students, firefighters and others. www.cascadehardwood.com ROP-6-4-1/#24 ROSEBURG, Ore. — Rancher Kurt Spencer had a close encounter with the Mal- heur National Wildlife Refuge occupation situation on Jan. 28. Spencer, whose beef cattle business is headquartered in the Umpqua area near Rose- burg, also owns and works four ranches in Harney and Grant counties. While traveling north in his red pickup between his ranch near Frenchglen, Ore., at the base of the Steens Mountains and his ranch near Izee, Ore., in the Ochoco Mountains, Spen- cer and his wife, Veronica, trav- eled through two checkpoints. The checkpoints had been set up by law enforcement of- icers following the Jan. 26 killing of one refuge occupier and the arrest of several others. The rancher, whose Frenchglen ranch is just a half-hour drive south of the refuge headquar- ters and whose property bor- tually barely looked around. I guess they were comfortable with who we were after check- ing our IDs and plate.” The couple were then al- lowed to drive on and at the checkpoint north of the refuge, their travel was barely inter- rupted. They assumed the irst checkpoint had called ahead and given them the OK for the northern stop. The 59-year-old Spencer, who grew up in Oakland, Ore., and has been a rancher for close to 40 years, said he has dealt with federal agencies in his business operations and has had mixed results. He has a grazing permit with the Bu- reau of Land Management for his Steen Mountains ranch and a permit with the U.S. Forest Service for his Ochoco ranch. “I’ve been on both sides of the issue,” he said. “I basical- ly have zero complaints with BLM. They’re been very, very good, easy to work with. The Forest Service has been more challenging. They have a dif- ferent attitude. It is like they’re 7 Farmers Ending Hunger... Begins With You! Help End Hunger in Oregon... one acre at a time! Farmers Ending Hunger Where your donation goes begins with Oregon farmers and ranchers who raise hundreds of acres of produce, grain and cattle. With a little extra effort, each farmer donates an acre or two to feed the hungry and suddenly our network has thousands of tons of fresh food! 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