News Nugget
FWS Denies the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog Endangered Species Protection
By Courtney Lowery, 12-02-09
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today its decision that the black-tailed prairie dog, historically found in the West and Midwest, does not warrant endangered species protection.
An agency press release explained the decision this way:
“Cropland conversion, urbanization, energy development, and invasion of non-native species all occur within the historical range of the black-tailed prairie dog and will continue in the future. However, with 283 million acres of available rangeland, it appears sufficient potential habitat still occurs within the range of the species in the U.S. Additionally, increasing population trends do not suggest these impacts are limiting factors for the species.”
The black-tailed prairie dog is historically found in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. The black-tailed prairie dog population is most often estimated by range instead of actual number of animals and the current estimate of habitat is about 2.4 million acres. Its historic range is 80-100 million acres, but the agency noted that while the black-tailed prairie dog’s habitat today is lower than the historic range, it’s still up significantly from the 364,000 acres the species populated in 1961.
The agency now recommends that agencies deal with the black-tailed prairie dog through regulation of shooting and poisoning and it notes that “all states within the range of the black-tailed prairie dog have to varying degrees incorporated black-tailed prairie dog conservation policies in their management plans.”
Just recently in Wyoming, the Forest Service OK’d a plan for poisoning on the Thunder Basin National Grassland. The decision came after years of negotiations with environmental groups, farmers, ranchers and wildlife advocates.
The Fish and Wildlife service asserts that prairie dog populations are quick to recover from poisoning and recreational shooting as well.
“Currently available information concludes that black-tailed prairie dog colony size increases by about 30 percent annually for several consecutive years following poisoning, and after intense but not total elimination,
colony size can initially increase by as much as 70 percent,” reads the agency report. Also, “Recreational shooting does not appear to have a significant impact on black-tailed prairie dogs at statewide or rangewide levels.”
Today’s announcement comes because of a court settlement (with the group WildEarth Guardians) that ordered the agency to release a review status by Nov. 30, 2009.
The agency gives more information on the prairie dog here.
The FWS also today announced, however, that it has found that the Sprague’s pipit, a rare songbird that calls the northern prairie home, may need endangered species protection. Today’s “90-day finding” means the agency will begin reviewing and soliciting more information on the bird to determine whether or not to list it on the endangered species list.
According to the agency, “The Sprague’s pipit is closely tied with native prairie habitat and breeds in the north-central United States in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota as well as south-central Canada. Wintering occurs in the southern States of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico.”
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Comments
Really horrific stuff.
Stupidly, ranchers continue to shoot badgers, coyotes and foxes which control prairie dog populations. They also killed off the blak footed ferret which was the premiere prairie dog predator.
This problem can be summed up in two words:
ranching morons
The lawsuit by Wild Earth Guardians is part of the on going range war by Enviromental groups against this country's farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. The more pressure they can put on these people and drive them from their homes and businesses. The easier it is take the land they use later on. When you have to villanize a bunch of farmers in order to justify your cause. Your cause is not worthy.
Recognizing that bureaucracies cannot change quickly enough to coincide with the policies of even a twelve year presidency it is a fact that this failure to protect the black-tailed prairie dog is more truly a result of failure in Bill Clinton's second administration.
But so long as shooting prairie dogs is so satisfying to the souls of sportsmen, bureaucracies will continue to serve them up as sentient target practice by real men.
USFWS did the right thing here. But there will be more suits, and if Obama manages to appoint enough gullible judges, someday the agency will be forced to list. Needlessly.
<A > The Rodenator</a>
http://www.rodenator.com/pests-controls-videos-rodenators
Here in MitcHELL County, Kansas almost no one seems to care if our songbirds are frightened and fly away whenever a vehicle with a noisy muffler or boombox speeds by. As soon as the noisy lowlifes can be heard approaching while blocks away, I tell my neighbor that we're hearing the mating calls of the (unfortunately not endangered) MitcHELL County "horny birds"! But it really isn't funny and we've noticed that it's basically the ugliest kids who are the noisiest - the only way they can attract flighty females. Let's hear no more talk about "Kansas values"! Would love to hear some reactions to this. Almost desperate, Karl (in Karl's Kastle)
Attention all officers here in MitcHELL County, Kansas. Be on the lookout for an older dark green pickup with Kansas license beginning with the numbers "437." Needs a ticket for very loud muffler noise late every night. As bad as it is here, it is even worse way over there in the city of Beloink! (Karl in Karl's Kastle)
"The noisiest kid over in the city of Beloink drives an older white sedan with license number 178-BJW. Our owner's friends in Beloink have told the police about him several times, but it never dawns on the Keystone Kops there that they could use an unmarked car to verify the noise; the kids have cell phones and can warn their friends when they see a marked patrol car coming.
"And it never dawns on the anti-social psychopaths (who may be making up for the lack of noisy rattles in their infancy) that their unlawful noise may be harming a sick baby or someone whose night job forces him to sleep days - or even some veteran who can get "flashbacks" of battlefield cannon booms!
"It's obvious that many Kansas kids are no longer Christians, or patriotic Americans, or even human because they have been slowly brainwashed and mentally enslaved by leftist, anti-family, perverted, unAmerican, Jesus-bashing, Marxist shlemiels and shmucks in HELLywood who exercise their first amendment rights by dangling every known vice before Kansas farm kids while secretly viewing them as red-state "hicks"! After America falls we'll be able to blame the buyers of HELLywood's videos and devil music as much as the HELLywood devils themselves!
"If you think such music doesn't create devils, why do little piggy Beloinkers blast quiet neighborhoods even on Sunday mornings during church time? Do those paranoids really think everyone is out to get them and they have to have growling tailpipes for the same reason a dog growls? Since we don't get to democratically vote whether we want to hear their music or any music, will those "dictators" be happy when God responds in kind by letting America be taken over by a big dictator who will likely ban all "dirty capitalist" noise! Until then, maybe a tornado - or even a nuclear war - will cover up at least some of the noise!
"Many other places (like Albuquerque and Reno) have huge fines for boombox noise and even impound offending cars! How can high-crime, gambling towns have better "Kansas values" than a north central Kansas town?
"Have the little piggies here heard of headphones? We don't care if they're smoking pot and fornicating in the middle of our road at 3 a.m. as long as they're quiet! North Bell St. over in Beloink is the noisiest place in the county. Would the BELLies care if one of our friends is a veteran a block east of them who might go postal over the noise? As long as the cops do nothing about this, we songbirds will keep singing to the whole world about MitcHELL County!"
See what smart birds we have?
Karl (in Karl's Kastle)
Well, our noise hating songbirds here in MitcHELL County, Kansass have another update on the boombox plague nearby.
They tell us that the No. 1 day-and-night boombox champion way over there in the city of Beloink is Aaron Adams in his white 1989 Merc, license no. 178-BJW. (We'll be happy to publicize any other lowlifes also and also notify their parents.)
I wonder if the folks supervising Aaron (when he has on his blue nurse-like clothing) are aware of his great impersonation of someone with neurotic - or worse - impulses! Sometimes it's hard to tell doctor look-alikes from patients.
Speaking of doctors, if any doctor will verify that the No. 1 noise-maker and law-breaker over there in Beloink has caused substantial injuries to at least one person, the city of Beloink and its Keystone Kops, who are well aware of erring Aaron, may soon be sued for damages if they can't put the clamps on Aaron!
PS - The "values" in Kansass are now no better than the "values" in New Yuck or Hell-A !
(from Karl in Karl's Kastle in MitcHELL County, Kansass)