Somebody in Nevada doesn’t like Toiyabe Forest Ranger
Guy Pence, and to show it they’ve bombed both his office (HCN,
4/17/95) and a van parked at his Carson City home; the latter
attack occurred Aug. 4.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
blames the attacks on “the ugly underbelly of the county supremacy
movement in Nevada.” When asked why someone might be out to get a
forest ranger, a calm Pence’s only reply was “I do my job,”
according to the Associated Press.
The Toiyabe
and the Carson ranger districts are known as hard-liners on
regulating grazing, drawing controversy over livestock impoundments
on the forest. Ranger Pence was on a horseback trip at the time of
the explosion, but his wife and three children were in the house.
“They’re fine, other than being shaken up,” says sheriff’s deputy
Jerry Mather.
In another anti-agency action, two
women in southern Oregon assaulted a female Forest Service worker
who was cleaning up a roadside rest area. The attackers appeared to
have been drinking, reports The Oregonian. The seasonal employee of
the Winema National Forest near Klamath Falls, Ore., received
bruises to the face and ribs but returned to work the next day.
Winema Forest spokesman Frank Erickson says the attack is
uncharacteristic of southern Oregon: “This is not a place where
people are afraid to wear Forest Service uniforms.”
*Shea
Andersen
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Taking aim at the Forest Service.
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