U.S. to poison prairie dogs

Jeff Mock

Jeff Mock

Active member
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 Posted: 10:46 AM EDT (1446 GMT)
DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) -- Wildlife workers have begun a program to poison thousands of prairie dogs in the grasslands of South Dakota to stop them from moving onto private ranch land parched by drought, a federal official said on Tuesday.

But in an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by eight conservation organizations last month, the U.S. Forest Service will spread poison on fewer acres than originally planned and conduct an environmental study to figure out a long-term solution, according to Don Bright, forest supervisor for the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in southwestern South Dakota.

"We need to be good neighbors and we do not want a landowner to go out of business," Bright said, referring to ranchers who said prairie dogs were eating the little grass left in the fifth year of drought.

Parts of the area have been hard hit by drought and had less than two inches (5 cm) of rain in the past 15 months.

The groups had sued in federal court in Denver, saying the prairie dogs should not be shot on federal land especially because their habitat is home to the endangered black-footed ferret whose diet consists mainly of prairie dogs.

Bright also said planned rifle hunting of prairie dogs -- which is basically target shooting -- will be banned this year in an area where there are about 200 ferrets.

Jonathan Proctor, Northern Plains program director for Predator Conservation Alliance, called the settlement a mixed bag.

"We hate that wildlife will be killed and ferret habitat destroyed on our public land, but the settlement will save more wildlife and habitat in the long run," he said.
 
This is so much better than the vacuums sucking them up and selling them to children in foriegn countries as household pets. That appeared to fire up some of the board members last week but I'm sure this is acceptable because nobody profited from the killings. :rolleyes:
 
Shooting PD's is fun and games for us. But lets stop looking inwardly at our own selfish enjoyment and make at least an attempt to recognize the facts, when PD's threaten the ability to make a living on the land the fun stops. It becomes a make or break business situation and poison is more effective than recreational shooting ever will be.
 
well lets see! if the antis had thier way and the pd's were left unchecked! And the drought continued!all the farmers would lose what little land they have left! the govt.would pick up whatever tab was neccessary to help them out! the PD's would keep breeding and eventually starve to death{dah no grass}! a very slow and painful death! well guess what would happen to all those precious little ferrets! no food hum ! you know these people{ and I use that term losely} SUCK !
remember the spotted owl thing? well they saved thier habitat ,which to an extent is a good thing. but that concentrated all the owls to this one area! well guess what ? the barn owls favorite food is the spotted owl,now they are concentrated to the same area! last I heard they were decemating the spotted owl! hum what faction will the anti, treehugging,psycho's sue for that? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I know were we PD they had already started last year. It was very evident. Asked several of the locals and they were pretty close mouthed about it. They make money having people come and hunt their places and rent them a place to stay. I felt we'd done a pretty good job of controlling them.

Putting poison into the environment doesn't set to well with me. Too many unknowns. Too many potential problems. I feel a little flying lead is much more selective.

I feel the main drive of the Anti's was to kill hunting more than it was to protect the rats etc. This is simply playing into their hand to help kill hunting and outlawing guns. Look at the original goals of Handgun Control Inc. Killing hunting was high on their agenda.
 
Jeff - You are a reasonable guy. I'm thinking of the others when I'm going off like this. Like you I'm a hunter and I enjoy hunting, but I also understand that I cannot truly influence local populations of PD's or Coyotes. Sure, I'd like to fool myself into believing that I can. But it would be nothing more than a fool trying to fool a fool.

With that in mind I am always taken aback when someone posts about ADC shooting coyotes from helocopters or ADC trappers working an area or when PD's need to be poisoned. It doesn't take long before we predator hunters start piling on, screaming about how unfair it is to hunters. I say, "Give it a break guys", if a problem needs ADC attention someone is loosing livestock or product (Melons, coyotes love melons) to predators or other vermin. Hunters simply can't be in the field as long as an ADC guy can. Trappers are another story, but we are talking about recreational hunting not trapping.
 
Your absolutely correct here Micheal. I recently purchased a new home near Ina & Cortaro on 3.3 acres. When I finally moved in back in July, I immediately noticed that I had a HUGE pack-rat situation on my newly aquired land. I poisoned the crap out of those little buggers. I feel that the rights of the land owner should come first. I also have not noticed any drop in the number of coyotes running the neighborhood either. I just always find it amusing that some groups of people get "up in arms" about Federal or State elimination of pests. Just my opinion.
 
Have they thought of what kind of "diseae control" they'll use with so many being killed at once?

Can you say "bubonic plague" = (an inflammatory swelling of a lymph gland especially in the groin)

Get Ot'a town!!!!!!
 
I don't necessarily disagree with anything that has been said here. Most of what you read is hyped up double talk, untruths, polotics, and a lot of BS by everybody involved. Here is my observations after 25 some years of shooting PDs in WY and SD.

25 years ago Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in SD was PD shooters heaven and Thunderbasin National Grasslands in WY was close behind.

15 years ago or so our Government poisoned the PDs in Buffalo Gap and admitted to doing so to quell complaints from local ranchers. Today Buffalo Gap is starting to come back but nothing like it use to be.

We then moved our shooting to Thunderbasin which was great till about 8-10 years ago. Then all of a sudden the PDs were gone. This is about the time the treehuggers got involved so the government denied poisoning them and said the plague got them. I found it funny that the plague stopped at the property line between the public land and the private. I was there as recently as a couple of weeks ago, as you drive in over private land you see PDs but as soon as you enter the grassland there are no dogs. Now the past couple of years to appease the treehuggers there has been a sign on entering saying you can't shoot PDs between June 15th and Sept. 15 to protect the PD babies. Last week the sign read No Prairie Dog Shooting Period. ????

Now to the ranchers and private land owners. They have a problem because it costs them about $2 an acre to poison. So if he has 10,000 acres that's $20,000 dollars to poison his ranch. His dilema, is this a justfied expense? By the way a 10,000 acre ranch is a small ranch. Some ranchers beg you to come shoot but lately others are charging ridiculous fee's of $300 dollars a day. ????

The SD reservations are another joke. They complain of being over run with PDs and want us taxpayers to pay for poisoning them. But if you go to the reservation to help them out and shoot a few they don't seem to have a glue as to what you are talking about. Go to a tribal office once and see what answer you get. Mostly "DUH!"

I have no doubt there is plaque in PDs. Even here in Wisconsin where we don't have PDs there was a couple of cases of plaque in youngsters that contacted them from pet prairie dogs.

So my bottom line is don't get all hype about the stories you here. Somebody is promoting something.
 


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