Chapter 2, Part 1

The Hage family and the Dann sisters grazed livestock on federal lands in Nevada through the last three sagebrush rebellions. Their stories illustrate the frustrations that many ranchers had with evolving federal land law and management over the last fifty years, as they went from being the dominant users of federal rangeland to one of multiple, competing users. Unlike the Bundy family, the Hages and the Danns battled the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service largely in court, fighting to defend what they believed were either private property rights or Native American treaty rights. After four decades of political and legal conflict, neither family is able to graze livestock on federal lands. When militia force means victory and courts mean defeat, the federal land has become a dangerous place.