"I don't think anybody wants casualties involved in what appears to be an issue with how government operates," Former FBI agent Robin Montgomery said of the Oregon standoff. (AP)

It’s been more than two weeks and militants are still occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in rural Oregon, in a dispute that has now pitted the birdwatching community against armed occupiers.

The FBI set up a small outpost in the nearby town of Burns, but haven’t made any major moves against the militants, who hope to create an area that’s free from federal government. That means no grazing contracts for ranchers, no obligations to abide by endangered species laws, no reason to keep up fences.

Former FBI agent Robin Montgomery is a police chief in Connecticut now, but when he was with the FBI he was involved in the Ruby Ridge fiasco in the early 90s, which didn’t go well. The militant’s wife and son were killed, as well as a federal agent.

Montgomery helped create a new FBI protocol after that and says he understands the FBI’s low-lying approach.

“I don’t think anybody wants casualties involved in what appears to be an issue with how government operates,” he said.

People involved in the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements are very critical of the federal response, saying their movements would be smashed down instantaneously if they occupied a federal building. They say it’s racist on the part of the feds to let these occupiers move about freely.

Montgomery doesn’t claim to be an expert on all the details of what’s going on in Oregon, but he does say he thinks the movement there is different.

“They are not impacting the public. I think that’s the biggest difference right there,” he said. “Not the color of their skin, but the fact that they’re in a very isolated situation that there’s no need to use some of the same tactics that you had to use in trying to clear the streets or open shops or do those kinds of things you see in an urban city.”

But one environmentalist who has gone to Burns to counter-protest against the militants says that’s untrue and callous.

“To say they aren’t disturbing anyone’s way of life is outrageous,” said Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the National Center for Biological Diversity. “I mean the town of Burns is under siege. There are 100 to 200 militia here downtown in Burns.”

Suckling lives in Arizona but he’s in Oregon now, going head-to-head with the militants.

“I’m here because it’s critical for the public to come out on to its public lands when armed militants try to take over those lands and intimidate us.”

Suckling says the Malheur Refuge is the best in the country for bird watching. And, he says it’s true, in some ways, this has become a battle between the birders and the militants.

“It’s legendary. Birders travel from all over the world to come here and see birds and so the Bundy militia has absolutely raised the ire of the bird-nerd community,” Suckling said. “And those are some folks you don’t want to mess with, which I think the Bundies are finding out right now as the political momentum against them really starts to swing hard.”

It’s not clear whether Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the ringleaders of this movement, are in fact scared of the bird watching community, but they may be rattled by some of the verbal altercations that have been happening ever since Suckling arrived on Friday.

Another birder who is also getting mighty ticked off?

Chief birder and Oregonian Noah Stryker. He just finished a round-the-world bird-watching trip where he set a new world record for spotting the most birds in one year &#8211 6,042.

He says he feels lucky to have public lands to enjoy, such as the Malheur refuge.

“We have an amazing access to the world around us here and losing any piece of that makes me quite angry. As a birder, Malheur is the jewel of Oregon,” he said. “It’s the one place that I would not want to lose, so it’s particularly frustrating for me to watch the news.”

Unlike Suckling, Stryker doesn’t think people should necessarily go to Malheur and duke it out with the militants. He says they seem to want confrontation, so why give it to them? But he does want more from law enforcement.

“I would like to see at least a statement from the FBI that gives us some indication, any indication, that they’re onto it and they’re in charge. They need to take charge somehow,” he said. “I hope that all of these people will face real consequences because they’re doing illegal things out there and things most people don’t agree with.”

But it’s not exactly looking like that will happen. The state police have asked the occupiers to leave and have told them they’ll be allowed safe passage out of the state if they go. That means they wouldn’t be charged with a long list of possible crimes, like sedition, destroying federal property, or trespassing.

It’s an offer passed up by the occupiers.

There are murmurings that this could all end this week, maybe Friday. But there were murmurings it would end last week, too.

And anyway, the militants have an event scheduled on Saturday. They’re hoping local ranchers will show up for a “signing ceremony,” in which ranchers sign documents saying they no longer accept federal authority over grazing lands.