where the hages willfully allowed cattle to wander on to unpermitted federal land. $156.88, the cost of the damage. it was a long awaited vindication and historic ruling for all western ranchers fighting for property rights. though the hages won back their rights they haven t still had their permits renewed. meanwhile the u.s. is appealing the case. do you have reason to believe they ll back off? i don t think they ll back off. the department of justice attorney. said, are you interested in settling the case? he said no we always win an the ninth circuit, that s our court and we ll reverse this. in addition the hages haven t seen a dime of the $14 million awarded in 2008. in fact in that case if the latest court ruling stands, they never will. we hoped to talk to the u.s. forest service about all of this to get its side of the story but they wouldn t talk to fox news
it s not like they weren t warned. my dad bought it knowing that there was a problem down there. but he had worked with the federal agencies in the previous ranch in california and got along with them. and he thought, well, you know, i can work with these folks. come to find out you can t get along with somebody when they re actually trying to take your property. why would the government do that? the hages say the feds were trying to strip their rights in order to take control of the land. partly for environmental reasons and the water which in a desert state is like gold. in fact, many western ranchers feel the government would like to end their way of life completely. no sooner had the hage family settled in and the government offered to buy the ranch. hage declined so the government filed a claim for his water rights. wayne sr. wasn t having it. if the government wanted a fight, a fight is what it would get. he contested that claim starting
the western range lands, vast scenic and a battleground for what became known as the sage brush rebellion a fight that began decades ago between locals and the federal government over land use. the sage brush rebellion got its name from the type of vegetation on a lot of the federal land in the west. ranchers are complaining that the bureau of land management, blm, doesn t identify with ranching problems. wayne hage sr. didn t plan to become the face of that we rebellion, but that s just what happened. he was just 2 when his parents sold their california ranch and bought pine creek ranch in central nevada. in other words, he can t remember a time when his family hasn t had to fight the government. they bought it for a place they could raise family on the
ranch and continue livestock business. the ranch itself is more than 7,000 acres. the purchase also included exclusive access to more than 700,000 acres of adjoining land administered by the federal government, so-called open range. wayne took a couple of days to show us around. do you really need that much property? yes in this country it takes 320 acres to raise one cow for one year. now they couldn t afford to purchase three quarters of a million acres, so instead they paid for their private piece of property and at the same time brought water and grazing. that s the way it s been done out here since the 1860s. these rights have been handed down through purchase or will for more than 100 years. and the reason place like pine creek is economically viable. however, that extra land is public property managed by the forest service and the blm. that s where they say the problems began.
violations of the general terms of the conditions these permits we were operating under compared to other nch ranchers absolutely not. in 1989 a fed up wayne sr. published a book titled storm over range land. the hages claim that in response the government reacted by going after them even harder and by the end of 1990 had suspended one of the hages essential grazing permits. observing effects of cattle grazing to the resources. the forest service made this video in 1991 laying out its case. excessive grazing is causing some of these more undesirable species like kentucky bluegrass here. and they are tending to dominate the site now. the feds claim that hage cattle were overgrazing that allotment and the land needed a five-year rest to recover. they instructed the hages to remove their cattle. the problem, wayne says is that the government couldn t clearly identify the boundaries of the forbidden area. we were licensed to have