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For Immediate Release

New Mexico Rancher to Bring Bundy Militia Terror Home

In the wake of failed attempts to spark revolution against the federal government with its occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the Bundy-led militia in a signing ceremony today recruited another rancher, Adrian Sewell, from Silver City, N.M.

SILVER CITY, New Mexico

In the wake of failed attempts to spark revolution against the federal government with its occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the Bundy-led militia in a signing ceremony today recruited another rancher, Adrian Sewell, from Silver City, N.M.

Today's agreement formalizes a plot in which another rancher agrees to illegally stop paying federal grazing fees and armed militia commit to meet resulting federal law enforcement with the threat of violence. Recruiting this New Mexico rancher threatens to up-end civil society and frighten and enrage people in Silver City, just as has occurred in Burns, Ore.

"Southern New Mexico rejects coercion of forest rangers and privatization of public lands," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Silver City welcomes visitors who want to share the wonderful Gila National Forest, but we don't need armed bigots brutalizing our community."

While their failure to recruit more than a single new rancher into its scheme is notable, the specter of more armed Bundy-militia standoffs in the West -- complete with closed schools, shuttered government services and terrorized civilians -- is nonetheless troubling.

Today's agreement moves signers and the Bundy militia members from an illegal seizure of federal property to establishing and coordinating an active terrorist network whose aim is to overthrow the federal government.

Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, is at the Malheur refuge and photographed today's signing ceremony.

"New Mexico rancher Adrian Sewell will not be thanked for bringing to New Mexico communities the same emotional, physical, economic, cultural and environmental terror that Harney County, Oregon residents continue to suffer during the Malheur refuge occupation," Robinson said.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

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