Leader of group wants land transfer

Associated Press

BURNS, ORE.

A leader of the small, armed group that is occupying a remote national wildlife preserve in Oregon said Tuesday they will go home when a plan is in place to turn over management of federal lands to locals.

Ammon Bundy told reporters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that ranchers, loggers and farmers should have control of federal land – a common refrain in a long fight over public lands in the West.

“It is our goal to get the logger back to logging, the rancher back to ranching,” said the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights.

The younger Bundy’s anti-government group is critical of federal land stewardship.

The armed activists seized the refuge’s headquarters Saturday night.

Meanwhile, a member of the small, armed group that has been occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon says he believes federal officials have issued warrants for the arrest of five group members.

LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona rancher, told reporters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday evening that he is one of the people who is a subject of the warrants, but he offered no details.