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Armed group demands land transfer
Vows to break federal control of Oregon refuge
By Rebecca Boone and Gene Johnson
Associated Press

BURNS, Ore. — A leader of the small armed group that has been occupying a remote national wildlife refuge in Oregon said Tuesday they will go home when a plan to turn over management of federal lands to locals is implemented.

Ammon Bundy — one of the sons of rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 Nevada standoff with the government over grazing rights — said at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that ranchers, loggers, and farmers should have control of federal lands.

Bundy offered few specifics of the group’s plan, but LaVoy Finicum, a rancher from Arizona, said the group would examine the underlying land ownership transactions to begin to ‘‘unwind it.’’

Finicum said he was eager to leave Oregon.

‘‘I need to get home,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve got cows that are scattered and lost.’’

As of Tuesday morning, authorities had not shut off power to the refuge, Finicum said.

‘‘If they cut it off, that would be such a crying shame, all the pipes would freeze,’’ he said.

As the occupation entered its third day, Ammon Bundy said the group felt it had the support of the local community.

However, the county sheriff has told the roughly 20 people to go home and a community meeting was scheduled.

While the antigovernment group is critical of federal stewardship of the lands, environmentalists and others say officials should run the lands for the broadest possible benefit of business, recreation, and the environment.

So far, law enforcement has not taken action against the group of about two dozen activists opposing the imprisonment of father-and-son ranchers who set fire to federal land.

‘‘These guys are out in the middle of nowhere, and they haven’t threatened anybody that I know of,’’ said Jim Glennon, a longtime police commander who owns the Illinois-based law enforcement training organization Calibre Press. ‘‘There’s no hurry.’’

The activists seized the refuge about 300 miles from Portland on Saturday night as part of a decades-long fight over public lands in the West.

They said they want an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their land after Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, reported back to prison Monday.

The Hammonds were convicted of arson three years ago for fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006, one of which was set to cover up deer poaching, prosecutors said. The men served no more than a year until an appeals court judge ruled the terms fell short of sentences that require them to serve about four more years. The Hammonds have distanced themselves from the protesters.