Some "backstory" on the bird sanctuary occupation (in need of debunking)

Last edited Mon Jan 4, 2016, 07:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Sorry to link to a conservative nutjob site, but that's the only sort of place where one would find a supporting view for the occupation, and this article is, at least, coherently written and pretty well stocked with arguable statements.

It begins: "The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle. These ranchers developed a state of the art irrigated system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north."

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/01/03/full-story-on-whats-going-on-in-oregon-militia-take-over-malheur-national-wildlife-refuge-in-protest-to-hammond-family-persecution/

Of course this is easily dismissed. The Harney Basin was long a Paiute Tribe homeland, and was set aside as a reservation by Grant after the civil war. Gold was discovered in the area, and other settlement pressures led to the dissolution of the reservation in 1879, when it was taken over mostly by ranchers (the soil and climate there not being well suited for farming). The Harney basin is a basin; that is, whatever precipitation falls there stays, and it has fundamentally been a seasonal wetlands since the pluvial. Irrigation "to water the meadows" is likely a gross misrepresentation, as draining wetlands has been the basic goal of ranchers and farmers for ages. Typically, levees are built around the main low areas and water flow controlled to eliminate seasonal wetlands in favor of a year-round water supply. The Harney basin was likely always an important stop on the western flyway, and its absurd that the article credits the ranchers for the bird population.

Many species that frequented the area were nearly extinct within a generation. Most people aren't familiar with the old "hunting" techniques that were common. It was more like take-no-prisoners warfare, of the same sort that extinguished the passenger pigeon and nearly killed all the buffalo. I've seen pictures and read stories at the museum where there were barges had huge guns like trench mortars installed, loaded with gunpowder and birdshot, and they'd fire straight up blowing whole flocks out of the sky. People in canoes would collect the birds and deliver them to markets by the wagon or freightcar load. In one year on the Malheur lake every single great egret was killed, thousands, for the feather trade. The numbers took over a decade to recover, and that was one of the reasons Roosevelt formed the preserve.

Anyway, I haven't gone through the rest of the article, but I imagine there are many other debunkable things talking points that we'll be hearing about from the other side as this goes along.

On edit, looking at the Hammond conviction, why was he convicted under Title 18:I:40:844 (probably using the wrong punctuation)? Which covers the IMPORTATION, MANUFACTURE, DISTRIBUTION AND STORAGE OF EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS. Witnesses say he used matches. The 2001 incident clearly involved poaching, as witnesses present testified, but if there was insufficient evidence to convict him on that, why not convict fairly on simple arson, which has pretty severe penalties anyway? Unless perhaps it was pled down from that. The 2006 case of the backfires seems pretty straightforward; he should have been liable for damages if it went badly, but it seems to have been done competently, and perhaps even accomplished what it was intended to do, which was control existing wildfires. Without the existing prejudice of the 2001 incident I don't think it would have gone to court.

(Not that this has any real connection to taking over a bird sanctuary)