Monday, October 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

UPDATE: Run out of Las Vegas, Bambi owners set up shop in Florida

Wild horses from the Red Rock herd stand in a corral at Oliver Ranch in this September photo. Photo by John Gurzinski.

The outfit that operated the Hunting for Bambi Web site in Las Vegas until it was run out of town by an angry Mayor Oscar Goodman has incorporated in Florida and applied for a business license from the city of St. Petersburg.

Real Men Outdoor Productions filed for incorporation in Florida on Aug. 14, two weeks before the company's listed owner surrendered her city of Las Vegas business license.

Hunting for Bambi first came to the attention of public officials when local media reported that its purported creator, Michael Burdick, was advertising that men could "hunt" nude women with paintball guns for a substantial fee.

The claim turned out to be a ruse, officials determined, apparently so Burdick could sell a raunchy video of the supposed hunts.

He sold the videos out of a northwest Las Vegas home he shared with Lakana Campbell, whom he said was his fiancee. Burdick repeatedly hyped the videos and the phony hunts in the national media.

City officials came down hard on the couple; Goodman even threatened jail time.

By the end of August, Campbell had surrendered her business license. But the Web site remained in operation.

According to records from the Florida secretary of state's office, Real Men Outdoor Productions, the company behind the Bambi Web site, incorporated there, listing an address in St. Petersburg. Pinellas County property records list the address as the home of Lawrence D. and Diana J. Burdick.

Also, according to the city's Economic Development Department, Real Men Outdoor productions is trying to get a business license from the city to operate a retail business at another address. That address is listed in property records as a home belonging to William J. Burdick.

The application is pending, city officials said.

Because he was not listed on the Las Vegas business license, Michael Burdick was cited by city officials for doing business without a license. He has pleaded innocent and is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 14.

RICHARD LAKE

Red Rock horses

The National Wild Horse Association has been given a grace period to come up with a plan that will keep free-roaming horses in Red Rock Canyon.

That was the outcome of a closed-door meeting Thursday between association officials and Bureau of Land Management State Director Bob Abbey, according to Laurie Howard, the association's vice president.

Government cowboys rounded up most of the herd from the drought-ravaged range last year. Local BLM officials had set Oct. 12 as a deadline to remove 22 Red Rock horses being held in corrals at Oliver Ranch in the scenic canyon west of Las Vegas and send them to sanctuaries or adoption centers.

Association members who are preparing for this weekend's horse show in Henderson have been waiting for BLM specialists to determine how many horses can be supported by the range.

Now they must develop a plan for returning the herd without that information. The BLM's assessment of the range and herd won't be ready until June -- after years of delay.

"We're going to have to wait another three weeks until we know the fate of these horses and the fate of the other horses in Red Rock as well," Howard said.

She said Abbey "is not in favor of long-term holding. Neither are we. We're requesting an independent assessment of the environment to validate no growth going on, despite some of the rains we've had this year."

A July 24 letter to the BLM from the Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses criticizes the BLM's handling of the issue.

"Past history on this herd shows that these management actions have been delinquent, and emergency gathers have compromised federal regulations and Nevada Bureau of Land Management polices," the letter from commission administrator Catherine Barcomb said.

The letter notes the BLM's Las Vegas Field Office "completed its first land use plan 21 years ago and has yet to determine an appropriate management level for a wild horse herd in their district. The field office lacks the history to support the completion of another assessment in 2005."

It suggests using data that includes the most severe drought years in history to avoid setting an appropriate management level that would be artificially high.

"Reduction of the herd to 40 percent below appropriate management level could easily abolish the herd's genetic viability," Barcomb wrote.

KEITH ROGERS