RENO, Nev. (AP) —Tensions bubbled over on the range in a turf battle that has been simmering for decades over one of the icons of the American West and scant forage on arid, high desert lands from Nevada to Wyoming. With the presence of wild horses continuing to pit animal advocates against ranchers, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is caught in the middle, on Saturday began seizing hundreds of cattle from a longtime rancher that it says are trespassing on public land in southern Nevada. The action came a day after the agency agreed to remove horses from the range in southwest Utah after Iron County commissioners threatened to take matters in their own hands. Wild-horse protection advocates say the government is rounding up too many mustangs while allowing livestock to feed at taxpayer expense on the same rangeland scientists say is being overgrazed. Ranchers say the government refuses to gather enough horses in the herds that double in size every five years while moving to confiscate cattle on lands where their ancestors have operated for more than a century.

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