Monday, April 6, 1998 | 8:32 a.m.
The BLM rekindled a decades-old feud Feb. 19 by issuing trespass notices to Carrie and Mary Dann and Western Shoshone Nation chief Raymond Yowell, ordering them to remove 300 cows and 450 horses from public lands in Eureka County.
The Dann sisters and Western Shoshone contend the land in question belongs to them, not the federal government. But federal courts have consistently rejected that argument.
The BLM has threatened to confiscate the animals this spring if they're not removed. In a similar 1992 showdown, the agency showed its threats were not idle by hiring wranglers to remove more than 700 horses owned by the Danns.
"I respect Carrie and Mary as individuals," said Helen Hankins, BLM Elko district manager. "But I am also responsible to other public lands users. The bottom line is: they are not in compliance with federal law."
But the Danns vow it will not be easy to remove their livestock this time. Within 12 hours, several hundred protesters could be sitting in the fields 250 miles east of Reno blocking the roundup, they said.
"The United States will have to face all the world's population," Carrie Dann said, adding that volunteers have been sending newsletters to 3,700 supporters for several years.
Yowell said any protest would be peaceful, and the Indians would try to win in the court of public opinion.
"It won't be done quietly," said Yowell, chief of the 10,000-member Western Shoshone Nation since 1985. "The United States will be pictured as the villain."
Hankins won't speculate when the government would round up the Dann livestock. But she said the government will be prepared and security officers will be on hand.
"One reason we haven't moved more quickly was to allow us to understand the situation," Hankins said.
Hankins said the central issue is overgrazing, not Western Shoshone land rights. The Danns are running seven times as much livestock as the range can support, she said.
The Danns have not been singled out for unfair treatment, she added. Last year, her staff cited 14 ranchers for violations of federal grazing regulations.
But the Danns and Yowell said federal regulations do not apply because the land in question belongs to the sovereign Western Shoshone Nation under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.
"We might reach an agreement if more land is made available to the tribes," Yowell said. "Now there is not enough land for our children to ranch. They have to go away to cities."
The Danns live on an 800-acre ranch homesteaded in 1923 by their father, Dewey. BLM records show he followed federal grazing regulations on adjacent public land.
Hankins said she wants to meet with Yowell and the Danns in a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement.
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