Rancher Kurt Spencer had an up close and personal encounter with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation situation on Thursday.
Spencer, whose beef cattle business is headquartered in the Umpqua area, also owns and works four ranches in Harney and Grant counties.
While traveling north in his red pickup between his ranch near Frenchglen at the base of the Steens Mountains and his ranch near Izee in the Ochoco Mountains, Spencer and his wife Veronica traveled through two roadblocks. The checkpoints had been set up by law enforcement officers following the Tuesday shooting 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 headquarters and whose property borders with refuge land, said the stop at the first checkpoint was “scary.”
“They were very professional and kind, but when you have guns kind of pointing at you, it is scary,” Spencer said in describing the scene to The News-Review on Friday. “They (officers) were very, very cautious. They asked us to get out and keep our hands free. They were FBI, but they looked like Army personnel. 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 actually barely looked around. I guess they were comfortable with who we were after checking our IDs and plate.”
The couple were then allowed to drive on and at the checkpoint north of the refuge, their travel was barely interrupted. They assumed the first checkpoint had called ahead and given them the OK for the northern stop.
The 59-year-old Spencer, who grew up in Oakland 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 Bureau 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 basically 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 different attitude. It is like they’re looking for you to make a mistake rather than helping you. BLM coaches me on what to do while the Forest Service is getting more finicky. But I’ve always done what they’ve ask me to do.”
The Bureau of Land Management is the majority landowner in Harney County with 3.97 million acres or 60.6 percent. Private ownership totals 1.6 million acres or 24.9 percent. The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service own a combined 711, 231 acres or 10.9 percent. The state of Oregon owns 197,417 acres and other government agencies own the remaining 36,507 acres.
Spencer said he has talked to some of his ranching neighbors and he said there is most definitely a split between them on how they viewed the occupation of the refuge headquarters 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 (refuge) and having dinner with them and taking them supplies.
“We have an issue, but these were protesters from a radical standpoint,” Spencer added. “The people from Harney County, from Oregon, from the U.S., we’re all in it for preservation of the land. We need to find common ground. We’ll do it.”
Spencer said the general consensus of the Harney County residents was that the issue would be resolved peacefully with no casualties.
“Everybody was dismayed that somebody actually got hurt,” he said. “We were hoping there would be a peaceful ending.”
Spencer said he hopes there will be some good that eventually 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 find some good in it.”
• News-Review Editor Craig Reed can be reached by calling 541-957-4210 or by email atcreed@nrtoday.com.
http://www.nrtoday.com/news/20390674-113/roseburg-area-rancher-encounters-malheur-refuge-checkpoints
Mr.Spencer’s hopes of something good coming out of the situation in Oregon,are already being realized. Many previous fence sitters now realize that the FBI/OSP, in and around Malheur Wildlife Center, are murderous scum. That’s progress, isn’t it?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have not been reauthorized by Congress since 2009. The State Department hasn’t been reauthorized since 2003. For the Federal Trade Commission and National Weather Service, it’s 1998 and 1993, respectively. The Federal Election Commission has been operating with an expired authorization since way back in 1981. Meet your unauthorized government. Every federal agency is supposed to operate under congressional authorization
a permit for animals to graze ????
WTF ?
Yes, this is what all the fuss is about, paying the government to graze a cow.
Seriously?
Thought it was about the uranium.
“I basically have zero complaints with BLM.”
Then you’re an idiot.