Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Anti-government activist Ammon Bundy is running to be Idaho’s next governor, according to documents filed Friday with the Secretary of State’s office.

It reverses the decision by former President Donald Trump’s Interior secretary, David Bernhardt. He had granted the permit to Dwight and Steven Hammond on Trump’s final day in office. The permit gave the Hammonds the right to graze livestock on public land for 10 years.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday issued a grazing permit and privilege to two eastern Oregon ranchers whose imprisonment sparked the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016.

As the violent mob broke into the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, and livestreams showed pro-Trump insurrectionists defacing property and posing in the House Speaker's chair, here in the West, feelings of shock quickly faded to familiarity. "There are years of warning signs," said Eric Ward of the Western States Center, which tracks extremism in Oregon and the West.

The federal government has proposed awarding grazing allotments to an Oregon ranching family whose members were convicted of arson in a court battle that triggered the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge by right-wing extremists. The Dec. 31 action by the Bureau of Land Management in favor of Hammond Ranches angered environmental groups.

The Oregon ranchers whose imprisonment helped spur an armed occupation in 2016 don’t have permission to graze on federal land after all. On Friday, a U.S. District Court rejected the Trump administration’s decision to restore grazing rights to Dwight and Steven Hammond, the father and son pair at the center of years of controversy in eastern Oregon.

After hours of testimony, a federal judge in Portland extended a temporary restraining order as he considers whether or not to prevent a controversial Harney County ranching family from grazing their cattle on certain parcels of public land in southeast Oregon.

U.S. Judge Michael H. Simon issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the grazing permits issued to Dwight and Steven Hammond by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke before he left the Trump administration at the beginning of this year.

Environmental groups sued this week over a federal decision allowing two Eastern Oregon ranchers to graze cattle on the same land they were convicted of burning in 2012. Prison sentences for ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond sparked protests, leading to the 2016 standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge became a household name in 2016, not for its beautiful scenery or because 300 bird species flock there, but because a militant, anti-government group had taken over headquarters for 41 days, leading to a fatal shooting. Three years later, an Oregon symphony offers music as healing.