A week after a Colorado state agency refused to ban shooting white-tailed prairie dogs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it will study the rodent to determine if it should be protected as an endangered species.
The decision was a vindication of efforts frustrated in 2004 to have the prairie dog protected, said Josh Pollock, conservation director for the Center for Native Ecosystems, who called the decision a “victory for sound science.”
The decision to study the white-tailed prairie dog population “opens a valuable opportunity for the scientific community to study for two years and find out what kind of population is out there in the ground.”
The decision to study the white-tailed prairie dog won’t have any effect on the Colorado Wildlife Commission’s decision last week to reject a proposed ban on prairie-dog hunting.
“Unfortunately, the white-tailed prairie dog is largely unprotected in the places they still live,” and the only federal action that would change that is listing the rodents as an endangered species, Pollock said.
The federal agency’s decision, however, didn’t sit well with Club 20, the Western Slope lobbying and promotional organization.
“We’re more concerned about the decline of the subspecies called the American farmer, which the prairie dog is contributing to,” Club 20 Executive Director Reeves Brown said.
Prairie dogs destroy pasture and damage herds, said Carlyle Currier, a Collbran rancher who said studies by Colorado State University show that cows thrive less in pasture that is infested with prairie dogs than in those without the other rodents.
Eastern Colorado ranchers battled designation of the black-tailed prairie dog as endangered by counting them themselves and finding hundreds of thousands more than were counted by environmental organizations, said Dave Whittlesey, a Delta County bison and elk rancher.
“I think the case will be the same here,” he said.
White-tailed prairie dogs are found across the western half of Wyoming, western Colorado, the eastern portion of Utah, and a small portion of southern Montana.
The white-tailed prairie dog is a stout rodent, 13 to 15 inches long and weighing one to three pounds. It has a short, white-tipped tail, large eyes, a blackish brown cheek patch above and below each eye, and a tan-brown pelt. It’s genetically different from the black-tailed prairie dog, which has a black-tipped tail.
White-tailed prairie dogs are generally found at elevations between 5,000 and 10,000 feet in desert grasslands and shrub grasslands.
Prairie-dog varmint shooting is a “decent part of our business,” said Wes Stout of Gene Taylor’s Sporting Goods in Grand Junction, who noted also that sport shooters like the 90-day period from April to June in which they can’t be hunted on public lands. That allows the animals to maintain their numbers, he said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will accept comments and information until July 7. Comments can be submitted electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov, or they can be mailed or hand delivered to Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R6-ES-2008-0053; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222; Arlington, Va. 22203.
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E-mail Gary Harmon at gharmon@gjds.com.
Comments
By lydia martinez
May 17, 2008 4:21 PM | Link to this
Please, please, please... Prairie dogs are friendly animals, intelligent. They are part of Nature. They are part of a Ecosystem. They are not dangerous. They have a language. It is not etical to shoot them, to torture. Not etical to accept that prairie dogs can dissapear from the earth and do nothing for this.
Human are overpopulated. Not prairie dogs. Even if there is a lot of prairie dogs, why kill them so violently? Why accept that they can be torture or just victims of some crakpots?
I dont understand this planet, in fact I dont understand human beings that are violent, sadistic, cynic and crazy. And for me people who kill prairie dogs are the worst thing that can be.
By David
May 10, 2008 1:01 PM | Link to this
science is evil and it is wrong wrong wrong time and time again. dont listen to them there are plenty of dogs out there. they could overpopulate in a heart beat if it wasnt for sport hunting.
and the only gun touting folks in these parts are socialist liberal cops that harrass republicans.
By jim
May 10, 2008 5:56 AM | Link to this
The government wastes so much money on stupid stuff. There are hundreds and hundreds of prairie dogs between GJ and Mack that you can see from the highways, much less the ones away from the roads.
I cannot imagine how many prairie dogs there are within 20 miles of GJ. It has to be in the tens of thousands.
What's endandered here is anyone using common sense!
I think trapping a few dozen of the vermin and turning them loose in Josh Polleck's front yard is a plan. Anybody have his address?
By D
May 8, 2008 5:24 PM | Link to this
The reason that the government has been called upon is simple: special interest groups are trying to trump nature again. When we mess with the balance of nature, the results are deadly. When small children and pets are found mauled and killed by coyotes, wolves and other large predators, the blame will lie upon those that have obliterated their food source.
Mess with mother nature and it ain't pretty.
Or perhaps we could just kill off ALL wildlife. We could clone cattle. We could clone the grass they eat. We could clone prairie dogs and put them in a contained area to make it even easier than it already is for the gun toting hillbillies to shoot them because they can!
Let's place the blame where it belongs:
a) on the CWC who continue to encourage and permit the abuse and torture of prairie dogs,
b) the gun toting idiots that shoot prairie dogs for fun,
c) the special interest groups who are only concerned about the almighty dollar.
Let's not go there in regards to "the american farmer" who is in reality as nearing extinction as the american prairie dog. The American Farmer fed his family and sold meat locally. Today, there are few true american farmers because it's all about mass production of beef and quick turn around time in doing so.
By Sidney
May 8, 2008 9:57 AM | Link to this
My father in law, who was a lifelong farmer and animal lover, always said "stop the sport hunting and let nature take care of itself: if one species is overpopulated, it's animal predators will show up and take care of it". You want the prairie dogs to be fewer? Stop wasting government money on wolf study and relocation and on prairie dog population control....bring in a few wolves, with radio collars, let them feed on the prairie dogs and the weaker, older and smaller deer and elk, you will have relocated the wolf, strengthened the deer and elk herds and controlled the prairie dogs, all in one step...and if the wolves then begin thinning out the cattle herds, well you can reemploy a few cowboys, and put a few donkeys and llamas to work as well...works out great for everyone....and no government dollars have to be spent on anything, except collars and transport for the wolves....
By Bill
May 8, 2008 7:02 AM | Link to this
With all the financial problems we have currently,why is the government wasting more taxpayer money on this. Let the ranchers / property owners that have the critters decide if they want them, if they don't they can allow all the hunting they want. No government intervention.
By Lynn
May 7, 2008 7:04 PM | Link to this
Damn... the feds havent been to Lubbock , Texas
...They can't get rid of the vermins.
By Lynn
May 7, 2008 7:04 PM | Link to this
Damn... the feds havent been to Lubbock , Texas
...They can't get rid of the vermins.
By Farmer John
May 7, 2008 5:28 PM | Link to this
You have got to be kidding me. There are so many prairie dogs there is no way they can be endangered. I have pasture land that the cattle won't even go into because of all of the prairie dogs. It's just another ploy by the animal rights people to stop a form of hunting. I don't trust the government to do anything right.
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