Bundy ranch family members and friends spent much of their weekend moving cattle shot or run to death during the BLM standoff earlier this month. The graphic images have gone viral online, shocking both rancher and animal advocates alike.

The first mass cattle graves photos released by Cliven Bundy and his supporters on Sunday appear to substantiate reports by witnesses who first reported the cattle deaths. Nevada assemblywoman Michel Fiore was among those who maintained that BLM agents either killed cattle by either shooting them or running them to death during the Bunkerville incident. Fiore posted several images of the cow grave on Twitter last night, labeling the posting, “#BLM massacre. This isn’t how you herd cattle.”

“Near their compound, right off the highway, they were digging holes. They tried to bury some cows on the compound, but I guess they didn’t dig the hole deep enough, so they throw a cow in and they put dirt over him and you have cow’s legs sticking out of the dirt.”

The Bureau of Land Management’s court order only gave the federal agency the authority to seize the Bundy ranch cattle from owner Cliven Bundy. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, several prized bulls were also shot and killed after being deemed a “safety hazard” during the standoff. A Fox News reporter, among others, who viewed the bull holding pens after the livestock were “euthanized” noted that any evidence of wild behavior such as damaged gates or fencing were not evident.

Prior to unearthing the cattle graves, Bundy had this to say about the destruction on the public lands after armed BLM agents pulled out of the Gold Butte area.

“They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week. Nowhere in the court order that I saw does it say that they can destroy infrastructure, destroy corrals, tanks, desert environment, shoot cattle.”

Statements posted by the Bundy family on the Bundy ranch Facebook page about the mass cattle graves:

“Digging up 1 of the HUGE holes where they threw the cows that they had ran [sic] to death or shot. I feel that this NEEDS to be put out for the public to see. In all honesty I never remember reading that the BLM would be shooting cattle. The only thing I have read/heard said they would be moving them and auctioning them off. Understand that this is beyond the cattle and it is overall about freedom but this is one of many incidents where the corrupt and unjust government is taking away OUR freedom little by little. The running to death of cattle and the shooting of cattle to allegedly save the tortoise is justified?”

A video released from the public lands the BLM agents were tasked with protecting also appears to show a desert tortoise burrow destroyed by equipment which rolled across the land during the Bundy ranch standoff.