Save the Prairie Dogs

Save the Prairie Dogs

My brother, Jason works for the government as a Wildlife Biologist out of Chadron, Nebraska. He frequently emails me articles and updates on certain issues going on that people (society) don’t know or even care about. Recently, he has been emailing about the Prairie Dog situation in South Dakota and frankly it really ticks me off that people and I have to mention, the government can be so ignorant.

Here is a little back -ground information on the little critters. Since the prairie dog population dramatically increased due to some parts of southwestern South Dakota because of the drought, ranchers and other landowners wanted protection against the damage the animals do from digging burrows, eating cactus; in addition destroying their grazing. The US Fish and Wildlife services decided to remove the black-tailed prairie dog from the list of species that receive protection for being endangered. The federal officials couldn’t foresee the prairie dogs as becoming endangered.

With that in mind, some parts of South Dakota decided to poison prairie dogs on private lands, and after that, an agreement was reached with environmental groups; which led to poisoning on some federal land adjacent to the private ranches. A little tip bit, these battles between landowners vs. Black Tailed prairie dogs have been going on since 1998.

When I first received an email from my brother I was furious so I replied questioning other alternatives on population management and if poisoning the animals would affect the surrounding ecosystem. Jason responded, there has been many alternative ideas like: fence barriers, changing the grazing system and sterilized tablets. The government was in a hurry to get this issue taken care of (election year) that the environment groups could only minimize the poisoning to less acres. He also mentioned that the poison they use does not absorb into prairie dogs tissues, it breaks down quickly after the dog dies therefore, other animals that hunt and eat the dogs won’t get injected with the poison.

I am still researching The Black Tailed Prairie Dog Conservation Management Plan, but there has been good news. A plan to designate the prairie dog as a state pest was rejected by a South Dakota; which, if this bill was passed, it would have destroyed three years of work on a management plan that would have allowed the state and ranchers to keep the prairie dog population in check. The new management plan that will be submitted to the legislature is aimed at maintaining the prairie dog population while avoiding harm to ranchers who don’t want the rodents on their property. South Dakota has approximately 195,000 acres of prairie dog colonies outside the Indian Reservations; the management plan allows control until the population drops to 166,000. If the populations drops to below 166,000 acres, the state could try to boost the population by creating incentive payments to landowners who could tolerate more of the animals – Now that is a plan.
I have not covered even half of the story on the conservation of Black Tailed prairie dogs, so, if you are interested to hear more on this subject matter, listed below are a few good prairie dog sites:
www.sdgfp.info/Wildlife/hunting/Prairiedogfinalplan.pdf
www.prairiedog.com
www.predatorconservation.org/get_involved/prairiedog2_alert.html
“Mother earth will live or die by mankind’s common fate. Everyone or no one will survive.”
-Buckminster Fuller