From accounts of threats made against employees of the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management since 2010, featured last October in High Country News. (See “The Great Republican Land Heist,” by Christopher Ketcham, about Cliven Bundy’s two-decade standoff with the BLM.)

On patrol near West Hopley, Montana, I noticed a Ford parked near a road closed sign. The truck was occupied by a middle-aged female with a small child and teenager. The adult would not speak to me other than to say that she did not have to put…