Associated Press
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York
Times |
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The Dann sisters (Carrie, right, and Mary)
awaited a conference call on Thursday about a deal that might bring horses
confiscated from them to their ranch's corral, much like those shown below
left after an earlier federal raid, in September. |
CRESCENT VALLEY, Nev., Feb. 6 — The government moved today to put an end
to its long battle with two elderly sisters, Western Shoshone Indians who for 30
years have defied federal complaints that they are illegally grazing their animals
on public land.
As dawn broke over the Cortez Range, agents of the federal Bureau of Land
Management, state inspectors and hired cowboys spread out across the Pine Valley
and began rounding up 800 or so horses belonging to the sisters, Carrie and Mary
Dann.
"They have been overgrazing and damaging the land over the years," said
Mike Brown, an agent with the land management bureau. "We began gathering horses
this morning."
The Dann sisters, the last Shoshone family living in this valley about 270
miles east of Reno, have refused to pay grazing fees on any of what was once
indisputably Western Shoshone territory, nearly 26 million acres in Nevada, about
two-thirds of the state. They contend that the Shoshones never legally ceded that
land to the government.
The sisters have already been fined $3 million for willful trespass, money
they say they would never pay, even if they had it. Now the bureau has been getting
tough on them.
In September 40 heavily armed federal agents, joined by helicopters, descended
on the valley and rounded up 232 head of the Danns' cattle, which were later sold at
auction. Then today, the government started after their horses.
But the aging sisters — Carrie is nearly 70, Mary nearly 80 — are good for
the fight. This morning, at their 800-acre clapboard homestead, near the land in
dispute, the dishwater stood cold, the grease stood hard on the eggs, and Carrie
Dann stood firm, though appearing a little more worn and lined since the fall.
"It's too much stuff for my little brains," she said over Cowboy coffee and
a Marlboro Light. "I'm too old now. I'd like to go back now to my 40's knowing what
I know now."
Mary, who normally smokes or speaks little, did more of both today. "What
papers did I ever sign saying I live by their law?" she said. "I never did."
Their brother Clifford, old and deaf now after being sent to prison in 1992
for dousing himself with gasoline and threatening to light himself on fire, when the
government first confiscated family livestock, barged in from the cold. "Who's going
to feed them colts?" he bellowed. "They're hungry."
The chores were left to a retinue of supporters, an odd group that included
an Austrian cowboy who is riding on horseback around the planet, an American Indian
with a logging-camp vocabulary, a Midwestern lawyer and an itinerant horseman.
Chastened by bad publicity that the September raid drew, the authorities
handled today's roundup less aggressively. The operation began in daylight instead
of moonlight. Roads were not blockaded.
In the last two weeks, the Dann sisters had removed about 400 horses from the
disputed range, many of them pregnant mares. Some are now corralled on the family
property, others with neighbors.
Those that were still running loose, as the roundup began today, face three
possible fates.
First, they may be considered protected wild horses, in which case they will
be placed in a federal adoption program.
Those that are not protected and that go unclaimed by the Dann sisters (even
if they carry the sisters' 3M brand) will be declared strays and the property of the
State of Nevada, which will then work to auction them off.
If the Dann sisters do claim these horses, then they face trespass fines for
grazing livestock on public land without a permit. If they cannot pay, the federal
government will send the horses to auction under the stipulation that the buyer
cannot sell them for dog food. (Horse meat currently sells for 15 cents a pound.)
Early this afternoon a glimmer of hope cast itself over the Dann ranch. A deal
was being brokered among the Bureau of Land Management, state authorities and Slick
Gardener, a noted wild-horse enthusiast from Southern California, who was negotiating
on behalf of the Danns.
Under the deal, the bureau would move ahead with the horses' removal, but would
allow a claim of their ownership by the Dann sisters, who could then transfer ownership
to Mr. Gardener. The fines and roundup fees would not have to be paid by the Danns in
cash, but would instead be added to their old bill, which the sisters have vowed never
to pay anyway.
Mr. Gardener could then keep the horses locally, possibly on the Dann ranch,
while buyers are found.
"It's a good deal," Mr. Gardener told the sisters today not over a traditional
pipe, but in a conference call. "You talk later about the land issue."
"It's a start," said Julie Fishel, the sisters' lawyer. "But what we really want
is for the government to honor the treaty."
Ms. Fishel was referring to the Ruby Valley Treaty, reached by the government
and the Western bands of the Shoshone Nation in 1863. The pact granted white settlers
access to Shoshone lands, but not title.
The federal Indian Claims Commission, however, decided in the 1970's that the
Shoshones had lost the land through "gradual encroachment" of the settlers. The
commission awarded the Shoshones $26 million in compensation, and the Supreme Court
ruled in 1985 that the tribe lost title, when that money was deposited as payment,
even though the Shoshones have never accepted it.
With interest, the award has now grown to more, than $136 million, or some
$20,000 a tribal member.
Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, introduced legislation last year that
would distribute $20,000 to each member of the tribe, thus ending the matter as far
as the government is concerned. The measure passed the Senate, but died in the House.
Senator Reid's staff says he will introduce it again this year.
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