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Are Prairie Dogs Friends or Foes?

Posted on: Saturday, 24 February 2007, 21:00 CST

By John David Sutter

After decades of being hunted, poisoned and yanked from their homes by vacuum machines, black-tailed prairie dogs in Oklahoma and elsewhere could have new protection under the Endangered Species Act if a federal lawsuit is successful.

Four conservation groups filed a lawsuit this month in U.S. District Court in Denver challenging the U.S. interior secretary's decision not to list black-tailed prairie dogs as a threatened species.

The prairie dog's habitat has changed as more people have moved into the Great Plains -- but people in Oklahoma disagree about the value it has in the changed ecosystems.

Ranchers and others say they're pests, causing injury and hardships to their animals. Others say they're vital to ecosystems by improving soil quality.

In 2000, the interior secretary said prairie dogs warranted such a protected listing, but the animals would need to wait in line behind species with more urgent needs. In 2004, the secretary retracted that decision, removing the few protections provided by the "warranted" listing.

The conservation groups say prairie dogs are down to 1 percent or 2 percent of their historical numbers.

A home on public land? In western Oklahoma, prairie dogs once burrowed throughout the loose soil and created labyrinth-like towns that were said to stretch for miles. The tan, chubby, squirrel-like rodents once tunneled their way all around the Great Plains, from Canada to Mexico.

Prairie dogs are only found in North America, and the black-tailed variety is the most abundant. Other species live primarily in mountain regions.

In Oklahoma, conservationists relocate the critters -- sometimes using vacuum hoses -- to keep them out of the way of urban development. Ranchers have been known to poison prairie dogs, and hunters shoot them.

Many are kept safe at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in southwest Oklahoma. Joe Kimball, a biologist at the refuge, said the future of the species is on public land.

"As far as actually going back to the original prairie ecosystem, I doubt that's going to happen ... there are too many people and people have to make a living," he said. "But we can manage islands and pockets" of land for the prairie dogs.

Easy targets for predators Prairie dogs are easy targets for flying and footed predators -- that's why they live in massive subterranean villages, Kimball said.

That vulnerability is readily apparent to Neil Garrison, an Oklahoma City naturalist who has tried eight times to create a home for the tiny animals at Martin Park Nature Center.

Each time he brought the prairie dogs in, a badger came in overnight and gobbled them up.

"We were trying to put a square peg in a round hole," Garrison said of getting prairie dogs to live in a contained area of the city. "It was just difficult to do."

Garrison said prairie dogs are vital to the ecosystem in Oklahoma.

The prairie dogs offer tangible benefits to the wildlife and native plants, he said. They tunnel through the red soil to make towns. That aerates the dirt, which means healthier grass, and cattle and bison get better nourishment.

'Destructive to the landscape' Ranchers often see the prairie dogs as a nuisance and an economic burden.

Scott Dewald, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, said horses and cows trip and break their legs in the prairie dog burrows. The rodents make the land "barren" he said, so it's nearly impossible for a rancher to make money grazing cattle.

"They're very destructive to the landscape," he said "They will basically take a piece of property and make it worthless in terms of production."

He said ranchers must be allowed to shoot or poison some of the critters, or chunks of their land would be ruined.

Hunting can be a healthy means of preservation, Kimball said.

If a rancher gets paid for people hunting on his land, he or she has a financial interest in making sure the critters stick around, he said.

But he hopes there always will be protected places in Oklahoma where the black-tailed prairie dog can live.

Source: The Daily Oklahoman

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