Patagonia replaced its usual home page Monday night with a stark message declaring, “The President Stole Your Land.” The message called Trump’s actions to shrink Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments “illegal” and the largest elimination of protected land in American history.
Zinke took a defiant tone in a conference call with reporters, saying, “I don’t yield to pressure, only higher principle. And sound public policy is not based on threats of lawsuits, it’s doing what’s right.”
Zinke argued that Bears Ears is still larger than Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks combined even after being downsized to about 202,000 acres (315 square miles) while Grand Staircase-Escalante retains about 1 million acres (about 1,500 square miles.