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Texas Ranchers Used to Hate Prairie Dogs. Now Some Are Fans.

By sunrise on an August morning, the landscaping crew at the Marathon Grasslands Preserve in Brewster County is hard at work. Plump, sandy brown bodies scamper across the gently sloping ground at this 2,700-acre preserve about ten miles northeast of Marathon, pausing where a piece of too-tall grass needs to be chewed down. Dirt flies as a digger cleans out a burrow, her black-tipped tail bouncing as she works. It’s a social bunch that touch noses as they pass one another and keep up a steady chatter of birdlike chirps. Meanwhile, a sentry keeps watch for predators from her perch on top of a mound. She stands alert, her stumpy little T. Rex arms resting on her white belly, and scans the landscape.

The Forest Service Gets a Slap on their Prairie Dog Killing Plan

On the Thunder Basin National Grassland of northeastern Wyoming, the livestock industry has been pursuing an aggressive campaign to expand poisoning and shooting of prairie dogs. And in 2020, the Forest Service gave them a plan amendment that radically expanded prairie dog killing, and eliminated a special designation of a Black-footed Ferret Reintroduction Area to boot. Yesterday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Western Watersheds Project, Rocky Mountain Wild and WildEarth Guardians, and struck down the Forest Plan amendment.

Hunters Should Recognize Predators as Allies, not Competitors

“Predator cleansing,” a term hatched not long ago by independent wildlife researchers, doesn’t mean what it sounds like, that is, the ancient tradition of killing predators in a vain attempt to create more and better game.

Traditional predator cleansing is a fool’s errand still widely practiced by people who call themselves “hunters” and compete in predator-killing contests legal and popular in 41 states. Traditional predator cleansing is even practiced by some game and fish agencies.

I asked Dr. Rick Hopkins, who has researched cougars for 45 years, what science supports Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s claim that cougar hunting is necessary to create more mule deer. “None,” he replied. “For years game and fish agencies have made such claims, but when pushed to provide evidence, they can’t.”

Patricia Randolph’s Madravenspeak: Federal judge slams USDA’s wildlife-killing agency

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Wildlife Services has long been secretive for a reason: Its actions are incredibly, unacceptably and illegally brutal and inhumane to animals, from familiar wildlife to endangered species — and even people’s pets.

“This agency has been killing as many as 3 million native animals every year — including coyotes, bears, beavers, wolves, otters, foxes, prairie dogs, mountain lions, birds and other animals — without any oversight, accountability or requirement to disclose its activities to the public. The agency contributed to the decline of gray wolves, Mexican wolves, black-footed ferrets, black-tailed prairie dogs, and other imperiled species during the first half of the 1900s, and continues to impede their recovery today.”

FAQ

What is Wildlife Management?

Wildlife Agencies throughout this country are tasked with “managing” wildlife. What these agencies actually do is enable ranchers, farmers, hunters and various for-profit corporations to destroy and annihilate wildlife. The overarching goal of these agencies is to generate grants that allow them to do the bidding of welfare ranchers and farmers to exterminate all things wild and replace them with cows, crops and other destructive for-profit

activities on public lands. All of these agents consider prairie dogs pests and happily gas tens of thousands of their burrows each and every year

with phosphine gas and other rodenticides that affect numerous endangered and non-targeted species. This is all done with our tax dollars

and behind closed doors. These agents limit public comments and are not transparent in their policies. PPC works to expose these agencies and their murderous policies in order to engage the public to work towards forcing change within these governmental agencies.

How Does CPW Work With Prairie Dogs?

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) annihilates prairie dogs routinely throughout Colorado and on Colorado’s State Parks. Both Cherry Creek and Chatfield State Parks have been poisoning thousands of prairie dogs on a yearly basis through the use of fumitoxin, a horribly inhumane gas where animals bleed out for days during an excruciating death. In addition, CPW is in charge of approving permits for relocating prairie dogs and they deny more than they approve. Their permitting process makes it increasingly difficult to save prairie dogs. In general, agents working for CPW see prairie dogs as an unwanted pest and work towards their annihilation and make preserving this keystone species incredibly challenging. CPW is incredibly hard to work with and they prefer to keep their actions unknown to the public. CPW officials do not care to be accountable to the public

What Are Prairie Dogs usually Poisoned with?

For fumigating burrows, Fumitoxin is the most common poison used. You can read more about poisons used to kill prairie dog colonies HERE.

Prairie Protection Colorado

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