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LAS VEGAS  - A national animal advocacy group excoriated the federal government, saying it misled the public about last week's removal of 11 wild mustangs that had coexisted for years with residents of a populated area outside Carson City, Nev. The Humane Society of the United States has called for the Bureau of Land Management to return the animals to the wild, rather than following through on plans to put them up for adoption. “The Humane Society of the United States denounces the Bureau of Land Management's decision to remove a small band of wild horses located just east of Carson City, Nev., in the Pine Nut Herd Management Area,” according to a statement released by the group Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS  - A national animal advocacy group excoriated the federal government, saying it misled the public about last week's removal of 11 wild mustangs that had coexisted for years with residents of a populated area outside Carson City, Nev. The Humane Society of the United States has called for the Bureau of Land Management to return the animals to the wild, rather than following through on plans to put them up for adoption. “The Humane Society of the United States denounces the Bureau of Land Management's decision to remove a small band of wild horses located just east of Carson City, Nev., in the Pine Nut Herd Management Area,” according to a statement released by the group Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS - A grass-roots community group in northern Nevada watched helplessly Wednesday as federal officials removed most of what remained of a band of wild mustangs with which residents say they have peacefully coexisted for years. About two dozen residents of a subdivision called Deer Run outside Carson City say they have tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the fate of 11 mustangs with the Bureau of Land Management, which governs public lands in Nevada and elsewhere and has purview over the wild horses.

LAS VEGAS -- Federal officials say they have finished rounding up 11 “problem” wild mustangs in northern Nevada and that the horses will now be offered for adoption. The last of a band that once numbered 50 mustangs were enticed into a trap last week, as concerned residents of the Carson City neighborhood watched in dismay, questioning why the Bureau of Land Management insisted on removing animals that had peacefully coexisted with surrounding homeowners for years. In a news release Friday, the day the last horse was lured into a trap with offerings of alfalfa and barley, the BLM repeated past claims that people had complained about the animals crossing busy roadways and damaging property to graze in a small public park.

Afton Canyon, a four-mile ribbon of green wetlands wedged between majestically weathered rock walls in the middle of California's Mojave Desert, has attracted many people for many reasons over the last century. It has a reputation as a cattle trail, campground, firearms range, off-road motorcycle course and bird-watcher's paradise. Wildlife, such as bighorn sheep, also come to the canyon for its life-giving, year-round Mojave River flow. But in trying to accommodate each of those often conflicting reputations at the same time, Afton Canyon has earned a new reputation as a clear example of the problems preventing the Bureau of Land Management from properly managing the Mojave.

Other people saw only a scarred and trash-strewn hillside. Miner Frank Melluzzo recognized opportunity. Under an antiquated century-old federal mining law, he staked a claim on 60 acres of federally owned land overlooking Phoenix and eventually was allowed to buy it from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for $2.50 an acre. He was looking for building stone. Instead, he struck real estate gold. In 1980, six years after acquiring the land, Melluzzo sold an interest in it to the developer of a planned condominium-golf course project called the Pointe Tapatio Cliffs.

A Wyoming rancher cannot use the federal racketeering law to seek damages against employees of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management whom he accused of harassment, the Supreme Court ruled Monday . The unanimous decision reversed a federal appeals court ruling. The earlier ruling had government officials fearing that if the high court permitted the case to proceed, it would spawn a bevy of litigation against federal employees merely trying to do their jobs.

LAS VEGAS -- Federal officials say they have finished rounding up 11 “problem” wild mustangs in northern Nevada and that the horses will now be offered for adoption. The last of a band that once numbered 50 mustangs were enticed into a trap last week, as concerned residents of the Carson City neighborhood watched in dismay, questioning why the Bureau of Land Management insisted on removing animals that had peacefully coexisted with surrounding homeowners for years. In a news release Friday, the day the last horse was lured into a trap with offerings of alfalfa and barley, the BLM repeated past claims that people had complained about the animals crossing busy roadways and damaging property to graze in a small public park.

BISHOP, Calif. - Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away. Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot. Dozens of other petroglyphs were scarred by hammer strikes and saw cuts.

Big Water, Utah So there I was, standing with about 30 other hikers in boots and backpacks, jammed into a room no bigger than a double-wide in a one-story beige government building in a destitute moonscape otherwise known as southern Utah on a warm Friday morning. If I sound surprised, I suppose I was. The day before I had flown to Flagstaff, Ariz., rented a car and driven more than two hours to Page, near the Utah border. I'd then gotten up early for a 30-minute drive to Big Water, only to find myself in the kind of hardscrabble wasteland that even rattlesnakes would be embarrassed to call home.

LAS VEGAS - A grass-roots community group in northern Nevada watched helplessly Wednesday as federal officials removed most of what remained of a band of wild mustangs with which residents say they have peacefully coexisted for years. About two dozen residents of a subdivision called Deer Run outside Carson City say they have tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the fate of 11 mustangs with the Bureau of Land Management, which governs public lands in Nevada and elsewhere and has purview over the wild horses.

Federal investigators acting on a tip have recovered five petroglyph panels that thieves cut from an eastern Sierra site sacred to Native Americans, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday. The location of the petroglyphs, stolen last fall, was disclosed in an anonymous letter to authorities. By failing to sign the letter, its author walked away from a $9,000 reward - a sign that the tip may have come from the thieves themselves. Experts had said the petroglyphs would fetch little money from collectors and would be difficult to fence because of widespread publicity about the theft.

BISHOP, Calif. - Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away. Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot. Dozens of other petroglyphs were scarred by hammer strikes and saw cuts.

An investigative journalist who has reported on the federal government's alleged sale of hundreds of wild horses to a known kill-buyer has released a video of a face-off in which Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatens to punch him during an impromptu interview. Dave Philipps, now a reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette, conducted a two-minute interview with the cowboy-hat-wearing Salazar, a Democrat, at an event taking place at an Obama campaign office in Fountain, Colo., on Election Day. In September, Philipps' article for the online ProPublica investigative group claimed the Bureau of Land Management, which manages hundreds of millions of acres of public land in 11 states, was knowingly selling wild horses to a middleman who is thought to have taken them to Mexico for eventual slaughter.

President Obama on Friday designated Ft. Ord a national monument, completing its conversion from bustling military base to popular Monterey Peninsula recreation area. The designation will afford additional protection to the 7,200 acres, which is managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The presidential action decreed that no mining or geothermal development can take place in the monument and called for the development of a management plan that preserves it in perpetuity.

Freed from the confines of Washington, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Sunday kicked up his heels in the California desert, where he raced across undulating dunes in a souped-up sand rail. And, perhaps as a reminder of the gridlock he left behind on Capitol Hill, Salazar's vehicle became mired in the sand as he attempted to surmount a steep dune. The daredevil antics were driven by a serious intent: to reach out to a constituency often antagonistic to federal officials and their management of public lands in the West.

Federal investigators acting on a tip have recovered five petroglyph panels that thieves cut from an eastern Sierra site sacred to Native Americans, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday. The location of the petroglyphs, stolen last fall, was disclosed in an anonymous letter to authorities. By failing to sign the letter, its author walked away from a $9,000 reward - a sign that the tip may have come from the thieves themselves. Experts had said the petroglyphs would fetch little money from collectors and would be difficult to fence because of widespread publicity about the theft.

In response to "Partners in Survival--Tortoise, Waste Site," Part I, March 7: In the above mentioned article, BLM associate manager Hugh Riecken states that the Bureau of Land Management is doing everything it can "to protect as much of the habitat as (it) can." The public should be aware that every acre of "desert tortoise critical habitat" in the East Mojave National Scenic Area is being grazed! The bottom line is that native plant communities are the basis for all terrestrial native animal populations, so it is folly trying to preserve an animal species and not preserve its habitat.

Slaughtering wild horses for food isn't a viable option for thinning herds that have strained public lands throughout the West, the federal Bureau of Land Management director told supporters of horse processing plants Tuesday. Instead, the agency plans to give mares birth control in hopes of diminishing the need for controversial horse roundups, Bob Abbey said at the Summit of the Horse conference in Las Vegas. The BLM, he said, also will continue promoting adoption and seeking locations to place captured horses other than its holding pens.

Restoring a policy abandoned by the George W. Bush administration, the top Interior official on Thursday gave the agency that manages 245 million acres of public land the authority to temporarily protect pristine areas of the West. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who issued the order, called it "a new chapter in terms of how we take care of our Bureau of Land Management lands. " Salazar's directive casts aside a Bush policy that was adopted after an out-of-court settlement between then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the state of Utah.