The Recapture Canyon Stunt Heralds The End Of America's National Parks

More than a week has passed, and it still makes my blood boil. These bastards need teaching:

Dozens of people rode their ATVs and motorcycles on an off-limits trail in southern Utah in a protest against what the group calls the federal government's overreaching control of public lands.

...Recapture Canyon is home to dwellings, artifacts and burials left behind by Ancestral Puebloans as many as 2,000 years ago before they mysteriously vanished.

The riders may have damaged artifacts and dwellings that ``tell the story of the first farmers in the Four Corners region'' of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, BLM Utah State Director Juan Palma said in a statement.

``The BLM was in Recapture Canyon today collecting evidence and will continue to investigate,'' Palma said. ``The BLM will pursue all available redress through the legal system to hold the lawbreakers accountable.''

...The protest occurred nearly a month after Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters, some of them armed militia members, thwarted a BLM roundup of his cattle near Bunkerville, Nevada, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Bundy, a states' rights advocate who refuses to acknowledge the authority of the federal government, owes more than $1 million in fees and penalties for letting his cattle use government land over the past 20 years.

...The agency warned riders all week to stay out, vowing prosecution against those who ignore a law put in place in 2007 after an illegal trail was found that cuts through the ancestral ruins. The canyon is open to hikers and horseback riders.

...Environmentalists and Native Americans criticized the protest ride, saying the ban is needed to preserve fragile artifacts. Mark Maryboy, a former Navajo Nation Council delegate, called it disappointing that the group had no respect for Native American culture.