And the land being grabbed? It’s ours.

The Malheur refuge itself was established by Teddy Roosevelt, an avid outdoorsman who in 1908 set aside federal property around three Oregon lakes as a place for migratory birds to breed, one of more than 50 such refuges created during his presidency. I wonder sometimes whether T.R. became a conservationist because he came from New York City, a place where the principle of setting aside land for the public is close to sacred. This can be observed every spring, as thousands of urban birders fill New York’s carefully defined green spaces, hoping to get a glimpse of the brightly feathered migrants that settle in the trees on their way north — without kicking out the Frisbee players in their midst.

But in effect, what the Bundy gang is doing is denying the value of such shared, set-aside space. Their demands are unclear, but at the very least it appears that by seizing the refuge’s land, which can now be visited by anyone, and returning it to “the people,” some of the people on it would be transformed into trespassers. Perhaps in the wide-open spaces of eastern Oregon, the idea that land should be equally shared among the members of the public makes less sense, but to those of us who live on top of one another elsewhere in the United States, there is no question that some property just can’t be private.

Malheur is such a property. A birder will tell you that more than 320 different bird species have been recorded at the refuge, and more than 130 have nested there — a pretty fair total considering the entire North American continent hosts about 800. But this isn’t just a tiny spot on the map where hard-core birders can ooh and aah over rarities. Because the refuge lies along the Pacific Flyway, a common route for migration, a substantial part of a given species’ population may well come through in the spring and fall. Mel White, an author and birder, says that when they see more than 300,000 snow geese in Malheur during migration, “even non-birders will be impressed.”

This is the purpose of a national wildlife refuge: to use our collective wealth and will to protect something important to all of us. The Blackwater refuge in Maryland has treated me to the stirring sight of hundreds of wintering tundra swans, while in New Mexico, I glimpsed the comical crests of my first-ever scaled quail at the Bitter Lake refuge. At Nebraska’s Crescent Lake, I’ve seen the tiny tiger-striped chicks of the pied-billed grebe floating close to their mother, while overhead graceful black terns balanced in the wind, a thousand miles from the sea.

I value my time on these refuges deeply, but I am also well aware that anything I see there — everything I see there — can also be seen by anyone who follows me. When I use that land, I do not use it up.