State to oppose prairie dog listing

By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 07, 2004

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RAPID CITY - State officials will soon ask the federal government to drop the black-tailed prairie dog as a candidate for the threatened species list. Pennington County ranchers say the state should do more — and fast.

George Vandel, the top biologist for the state Game, Fish & Parks Department, told the Pennington County Commission and a large group of area ranchers Tuesday that GF&P Secretary John Cooper and state Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel will make the formal request to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Vandel said the state’s request will contain preliminary data from a survey indicating the state has more than 200,000 acres inhabited by prairie dogs, including 170,000 acres of nontribal land. The survey is nearly complete.

“What we’re going to say is, based on communication with the people who did the survey, we estimate the numbers are going to exceed what was recommended by the 11-state working group for prairie dog acreages for South Dakota,” Vandel said after Tuesday’s meeting.

The 11 Western states, including South Dakota, began working to get accurate surveys of their prairie dog populations and developing prairie dog management plans after the Fish & Wildlife Service found in February 2000 that the prairie dog deserved to be a candidate for the threatened species list.

Vandel said the states’ evolving plans plus the better census information provide a better chance to get prairie dogs removed from the candidate list.

“I think now is the best time that I’ve ever seen for providing the Fish & Wildlife Service with accurate information, to give them good reasons why the prairie dog no longer needs to be listed,” he said.

Vandel said the state would resume work on its own prairie dog management plan as soon as the final census count is made.

But Pennington County commissioners and many ranchers at Tuesday’s meeting said both the survey and the plan are taking too long, while prairie dogs are ruining more and more rangeland in eastern Pennington County.

Charles Kruse, who ranches in Conata Basin, south of Badlands National Park, said prairie dogs from federal land are overflowing onto his land. Poisoning of prairie dogs stopped on federal land after the February 2000 finding by the Fish & Wildlife Service. In Conata Basin, poisoning halted in 1996 to achieve a target of 12,500 prairie dog acres, according to Bill Perry, Wall District ranger for Buffalo Gap National Grassland.

Kruse and other ranchers told commissioners that the proliferating prairie dogs are chewing up the last of the vegetation in the area. “The prairie dogs are eating the cactus,” he said. “All of the antelope and deer are leaving federal land and coming onto private land.”

Kruse said that without vegetation, fragile topsoil is blowing, causing 2-foot drifts in the road ditches.

Rancher Marvin Jobgen of Scenic said prairie dogs covered about 5,000 acres in Conata Basin at the time of the black-footed ferret reintroduction in 1996. Now, with no poisoning, prairie dogs have devastated at least three times that acreage, Jobgen said.

However, Perry said prairie dog acres dropped from 11,200 in 1996 to 9,400 acres in 1999 during a wet period but now, after three years of drought, have grown to slightly less than 14,000 acres.

He said dogs tend to proliferate in dry years, especially if grazing is not also reduced.

Vandel said preliminary results of the aerial survey indicate prairie dogs cover about 30,000 acres in Pennington County, including about 18,000 acres on public lands.

The county commission Tuesday passed a resolution calling on Gabriel and Cooper to immediately institute a program to control prairie dogs on private land that are encroaching from public land. The resolution also calls for the state and the federal government to set up a buffer zone within public lands where prairie dogs will be controlled to prevent them from migrating onto adjacent private land.

The commission also hopes to set up a meeting soon with state and federal officials on the prairie dog issue.

“It’s my desire that we need to bring this issue to a conclusion,” commissioner Gale Holbrook said. “Is the state going to help or not going to help?”

Vandel said the state had been working on a management plan but was told to put it on hold until the prairie dog population survey is finished. He said he, Gabriel and Cooper all want to get a plan completed, but he said he didn’t know how long it would take.

Once the plan is formulated, it might require legislative approval. In 2002, the state Legislature passed a law giving it approval over any plan that included landowner incentives to allow prairie dogs or prohibitions against landowners killing prairie dogs.

Pennington County Weed and Pest supervisor Scott Guffey noted that it is unlikely a plan could be put together in time for this year’s legislative session, which starts Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com