December 3, 2008 1:17 PM
Are prairie dogs an endangered species?
Is this little fellow endangered?
The black-tailed prairie dog, the furry sentinel of Colorado's Eastern plains, may win the Endangered Species designation that its champions crave.Love them or hate them, there is no disputing that they once lay claim to some 90 million acres east of the Rockies, and now they've been squeezed into less than 2 million.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service today announced that Colorado's most abundant prairie dog species has cleared its first hurdle in reaching for the threatened or endangered designation that could protect the species from farmers, developers and sportsmen.
That's just the first step, though, Fish & Wildlife officials cautioned.
They approved a process that will thoroughly review the arguments for and against the designation.
Earlier this year, the environmental group WildEarth Guardians filed a complaint against Fish & Wildlife for failing to list the species as endangered or threatened, despite what the group says are valid reasons to do so.
Do prairie dogs deserve endangered species protection?
December 3, 2008
7:34 PM
DistanceRider writes:
We have coexisted with the creatures for 30 years, mostly depending on the hawks, eagles, coyotes, foxes (and bubonic plague to take them down every half dozen years or so).
Because of the badly planned and unchecked development near us, the disgusting rodents are now getting into the garage, barn and even falling into the basement window wells. Some are already obviously sick because they will approach a human without fear (not normal in a wild animal), others are young ones kicked out by the breeding pair to make room for the next batch. Incidentally we visited with a trapper out in the field one day. He was hired by this particular developer to capture exactly six prairie dogs to show good faith to the city for preserving them. Six out of literally thousands. Many were scraped over but nowhere near enough. Now, we have to kill them by the dozens (at least a few hundred just this summer) because the developer didn't want to be bothered with doing the right thing and taking care of the situation.
We have valid concerns about the possibility of plague-infected fleas getting onto our pets and neighborhood children when they play outside. Never had to worry about that in 1975 because there was more than enough room for everybody.
These clueless, citified Guardians clearly have no idea of what it takes to live next to wildlife. Coexisting is easy and accepted by all rural people. The PDs flourished just fine where they had room and provided plenty of nourishment for the predators. Now, pushed into about 35 acres, they have denuded the ground completely to bare soil. They are starving on bare ground with no vegetation to eat so they feast on their own kind, it's disgusting. Their feces are everywhere, holes inside craters like the surface of the moon, big enough to swallow a human leg, let alone livestock, and the bones of the dead onesmake it a graveyard. It's hardly charming and cute.
Tell me Mark, how is it humane to put these rodents on an endangered list so they cannot be managed for the good of the species or the other species that exist around them? We're not stupid here, we are fully aware of the agendas of these animal rights groups. Idiots that they apparently are.
We have to act not only to protect our own health but to lessen the possibility of a really bad case of plague. Where will these Guardian freaks be when that happens?
Mark, can you post a contact with U.S. Fish and Wildlife so we can send an affidavit or letter and photos expressing our sentiments?
December 3, 2008
10:44 PM
The DJ writes:
There are other ways to deal with your problem besides killing them. Are you really for animal cruelety? Why not find a way to move them to the wild? It seems very inhumane to go around killing the little prarie dogs... and also... they are not rodents and they do not transmit the plague. Prarie Dogs are no more dirty than dogs and cats. There are enough endangered and extinct animals already and i don't think we should be adding any more animals to those categories. Besides... prarie dogs didn't bug us until humans drove them out of their original fields and built useless buildings. We made them move so now we have to face the consequences.
December 4, 2008
5:19 AM
McHappy writes:
I know one place the prairie dogs are endangered, my back yard. I didn't make them move, I made them dead. I've probably exterminated all of them or so in the last 2 years. As far as your animal cruelity goes, I don't see what's so cruel about a visit from ol' doctor Smith & Wesson, it's over in less than 1/100th of one second and the prairie dog doesn't even know what hit it. DJ, as far as prairie dogs not transmitting the plague goes, you are ill informed. It is known that they carry plague and their bites, ticks and fleas are perfectly capable of passing it on to another being. Not to mention they are a perfect candidate for contracting and carrying rabies. The other ways you mentioned, for dealing with prairie dogs, are they fiscally sound? A .223 round for my mini-14 costs a little under a dime. I can't afford more than that per prairie dog. You see, food and fuel costs have meant that I must cut back costs in other ares, such as rodent control (Oh yes prairie dogs are a type of squirrel, which makes them rodents, check your encyclopedia).
Also just to make friends with the enviromentalists: I pee in streams. I get as many plastic bags as I can for my groceries (then grab a few extra to toss out of my Hummer's window on the way home). I punch endangered species. I use styrofoam cups. Instead of bread, I feed ducks quarters (when they eat enough, they sink). I pour motor oil down the drain. Once a week I buy a gallon of gas, just to light on fire and watch the black smoke fill the sky. I raise chickens with steroids. Twice a year I visit the ocean to stick an ultrasonic emitter in the water and mess with the whales. I love real ivory. I own a volcano. I also own a termite mound. Any product not tested on animals, I test on animals before I test it on me. I fart...a lot. I only us aerosols that have CFCs, lots of 'em. I don't recycle paper. I wipe with sea turtle shells. I make hysterical enviromental reports and release them to enviromentalist to watch them run around screaming about the sky and how it is falling. Then I laugh at those same enviromentalists. I leave a 1000 watt high pressure sodium bulb on in my driveway all night every night. I leave the same on in every room of my 104 room mansion. I run the heater and A/C at the sametime all year long just to achieve maximum comfort. I store cyanide in koi ponds (yours probably). I have a garden, but only grow thistles and poison ivy.
I give caramel covered onions to trick or treaters. I leave my car running (in the handicap spot) ALL THE TIME because I hate waiting for it to warm-up. I use the motor cart at stores just because. I over fertilize. I catch more than the limit. I water 7 days and nights a week. I mine. I love earth, it was here millions of years before me, it will be here millions of years after.
December 4, 2008
6:12 AM
The DJ writes:
wow... you seem like a nice person.
December 4, 2008
6:16 AM
The DJ writes:
And about the prarie dogs being rodents... i just like not to consider 'rodent' a bad thing. I love all animals... thats why i am a vegetarian. But to me it seems like you hate animals... and if you really are doing everything you say you are... you dont love the earth as much as you think you do
December 4, 2008
6:19 AM
The DJ writes:
I also love all animals... regardless to weather they are a rodent or not. That is why i am vegetarian... it seems to me like you hate animals... and if you really do all you say you do... then you dont really love the earth that much.
December 4, 2008
6:22 AM
LetsThink writes:
Obviously, prarie dogs are more valuable to us than unborn babies.
Are we heading in the right direction???
December 4, 2008
9:41 AM
Truth writes:
DJ - How can you be a vegetarian??? Don't you realize that thos plants you eat have lives, and a duty to reproduce. When you eat them, you are not only taking their lives, but also those of their unborn. You need to stop the barbaric practice of taking these innocent lives immediately.
December 4, 2008
12:39 PM
LS writes:
... they are not rodents and they do not transmit the plague.
D,J c'mon hon, you need to step it up a notch. There are more holes in your comment than exist in a prairie dog colony.
By definition: The Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus), is a rodent of the family sciuridae found in the Great Plains of North America. Takes care of one point of your misinformation.
Prairie dogs are very susceptible to bubonic plague, acquiring it from fleas infected with plague bacteria. See more about plague here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague
Takes care of another point of misinformation for you.
... prarie dogs didn't bug us until humans drove them out of their original fields and built useless buildings. We made them move so now we have to face the consequences. Another flaw in your thinking. YOU live in a useless building just like the rest of us. Maybe you could start an earth friendly trend and start sleeping out in the open so you don't have to carry the guilt of living in a useless building. The consequences that have to be faced are what is commonly referred to as species management. Too many of one species sickens the overall population as a whole.
Maybe you could use a little meat protein in your diet as your thinking is not entirely clear. Just saying. To survive as a species they must be managed and if killing certain numbers of them accomplishes that, then I am all for it. To let them overrun the land is biological ignorance on the part of the fools who are asking to let it happen.
December 4, 2008
3:36 PM
Joseph writes:
McHappy and DistanceRider are a couple of monkeys.
To those of you who complain about prairie dog "infestation": it's an externality of your desire to live in the sticks as a rural person.
People who choose to live in the hills risk forest fires or slides, those who choose to live on the coast risk earthquake, those in the Mississippi River valley risk recurring floods. These are predictable risks, so don't be purposely unintelligent about your having accepted them when you chose where to buy a house.
What is so difficult to understand about the fact that if you want to be a suburbanite or a rural hillbilly, you're going to face associated environmental contingencies?
It's not an appropriate response to your apprehensions to kill a species that you consider a nuisance to your rural existence. If prairie dog population numbers suggest the need for protection, so be it. They were there before you rural dwellers, so deal with it. And while you're at it, stop driving SUVs.
December 4, 2008
5:59 PM
Milehighguy writes:
I love animals too - they taste great. Actually, I am not for just destroying animals or anything on earth for the fun of it, but I do consider humans to be of a higher life form than animals. We should take care of all we have, but within reason. Animals and the earth are for us to use. I am not ashamed of urban sprawl and displacement of prarie dogs. They are far from endangered.
December 4, 2008
6:00 PM
Nora E. Pickering writes:
If we don't take care of the prairie dogs it will be like Idaho we use to enjoy seeing them off the freeway but not there is nothing now
December 4, 2008
6:04 PM
DistanceRider writes:
Joseph, we've existed in our location for three decades, next to a population that was controlled naturally and have always accepted that. How is that "unintelligent?" Your argument about "environmental contingencies" (WTF?) is moot. Unchecked and greedy development has nothing to do with an environmental contingency. You sit smugly in your downtown Denver condo and point your weak and bony finger at those of us who have to do the dirty work - to manage the rotting leftovers of other citified people who have no idea of what they are doing. Why should I care what you think? Actually I don't, quite frankly. We are sitting here laughing at your comment that prairie dog populations suggest they should be protected. If this were 1908 maybe, but it isn't, and you could stand to catch up with the rest of us. People have come here by the droves and the lesser animals are getting pushed aside whether you like it or not. Your post has all the trappings of a land developer or clueless PETA person who has no appreciation of healthy open spaces. That includes healthy wildlife.
The point of my original post is that too many of these animals will not survive surrounded by incoming development. They are currently starving in our area, cannibalizing one another for food, and one doesn't have to look far to see it happening everywhere. PD populations must be managed or the next round of plague (which is due in the next year or so) might be the one to take out entire communities of them, just as mother nature would intend. Calling an overabundant species a protected species is simply part of an animal rights activists dream agenda and you fit that bill to a T. Typical hogwash.
Sorry to pop a hole in your little bubble dude, I do live in an outlying area, but I don't own an SUV and never have. Unlike you however, I don't spend sleepless nights worrying about where other people live or what they drive because last I checked it's a free country. Pity you. A sweeping statement like that clearly proves that you really need to get out more.
DJ to answer your comment, not sure who you directed it to. As an animal welfare activist myself, I admire and respect all the creatures we have around us and there are many. I am truly disgusted when I think of AR advocates sitting around hatching up biased plots in the guise of "protecting" a certain species, when in fact they are pretty much writing death warrants for them. Trying to curtail the legal management of these animals by using an "endangered" status designation is sentencing them to cruel and very short existence.
DJ, if you love them so much, stop your handwringing and come right on over! You can start live-trapping or soaping these animals out of their holes and move them to a welcoming area that will support their burgeoning numbers. Would save us the trouble of having to shoot, use cyanide pellets, gas, and drown them.
December 5, 2008
11:05 AM
trc101 writes:
How anyone could even think that these critters are endanger of becoming extinct is unbelieveable.
There are millions and millions of these animals in Colorado, let alone Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota.,Wyoming, and Montana. The small town that I grew up in Southern Colorado has them movin into town and into the Cemetary. To even think of making them endangered is the most foolish thing I ever heard.
December 5, 2008
11:31 AM
MED writes:
...plague carrying rodents who multiply as fast as rabbits...endangered?
What an incredibly stupid idea!!!
I am starting hate people more every day...we really need to divide this nation in half!
December 9, 2008
11:52 AM
Basement Repair Specialist writes:
I had incidents where they were falling into my window wells so I put a cover over them and I haven't had any problems since. If you haven't already, put covers over your window wells. It will protect the animals.