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This is a speech given by Nicole Rosmarino, RMAD’s wildlife coordinator, on August 8, 1998, at a conference sponsored by the National Audubon Society, titled "Balancing People and Wildlife: Advocacy for Prairie Dog Ecosystem Conservation."
Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Rosmarino and I am the prairie conservation coordinator for the Biodiversity Legal Foundation. I’m also the wildlife coordinator for Rocky Mountain Animal Defense. But I would like to talk today as an individual.
I believe that the present state of wildlife management demands that citizens and public interest groups push the envelope on wildlife restoration and preservation.
I also believe that all of the agencies on this panel—the Forest Service as well, although they're not here, unfortunately—do have a duty to manage in the public interest. And the best way for them to do that is to protect native wildlife.
We must help internal advocates within the agencies to protect species. We must also be sure to focus on removing obstacles that remain in the way of our goal, and our goal today that were discussing is prairie dog conservation, or, more appropriately, conservation and restoration.
The agencies here today are precisely those agencies most involved in prairie dog management, federally and also in Colorado. And I would submit that they are also precisely those agencies that have shown complicity in the program of prairie dog eradication.
What I'd like to talk about are policies that remain in the way of prairie dog ecosystem restoration. The Division of Wildlife does impose obstacles to relocation. In southern Colorado, a group of citizens are attempting to secure land to preserve the prairie dog ecosystem.
The DOW management down there is siding with a county-level ordinance which prohibits the import of prairie dogs to Baca County. We have a situation here where our state wildlife management agency is siding with an ordinance that violates the right of a private property owner to use his or her land to protect much-maligned and biologically threatened wildlife. I believe this reflects a continued treatment of prairie dogs as pests in the mind of the Division of Wildlife. The Division of Wildlife also legitimates poisoning; it has on several occasions said poisoning is OK. The most notorious case would be the Lafayette City Center case, where the Division of Wildlife said that that qualified as humane removal—poisoning qualified as humane removal. As any of that were involved in that case know, it was not humane for the hawks and the eagles—the bald eagles—and the owls that inhabited that colony and used it for much-needed food. It was also not humane to any of the burrow dwellers who suffered a 10-72 hour death characterized by drowning in their own blood.
The Division of Wildlife, as Janet [George, panelist and DOW biologist] mentioned, also has a season on black-tailed prairie dogs—it’s 365 days a year, no bag limit.
My favorite agency to pick on, actually, is the U.S. Forest Service. They are managing their national grasslands … for the eradication of native wildlife.
If you inventory the 20 national grasslands, 17 of those are in prime black-tailed prairie dog habitat. None of those are managing at levels that we saw naturally. These are public lands. In history, we saw 10%-20% of suitable lands inhabited by black-tailed prairie dogs. On all but three of the national grasslands, they are managing—the Forest Service are managing—the black-tailed prairie dog at 1%, or well under 1%, of their land area. On the remaining three, they are managing at about 2%, if you measure fully active prairie dog colonies.
We can do something about this. And, as I said at the outset, citizens and public interest groups … need to do something about this.
My critique is not directed at the individuals on this panel. I do believe that they recognize the plight of the prairie dog. Rather, my critique is represented at the agencies that they represent. And, as I mentioned, they are the agencies that we need to focus on, and they have taken part in the process that has led up to National Wildlife Federation petitioning for the black-tailed prairie dog—a petition that is biologically mandated. It is my hope that these individuals can take the message back to their agencies and a sense of the urgency of the plight of the prairie dog and the ecosystem that she supports.
This urgency requires absolute cooperation between the federal and state levels of government, absolute cooperation between the states, and between citizens and government to work out a solution here.
For starters, the Division of Wildlife can categorically ban shooting on black-tailed prairie dogs; there is no justification for this activity. Counsel for the Colorado Wildlife Commission stipulated that the Wildlife Commission should only consider biological information when regulating. Even abiding by this narrow stipulation, we can meet that demand. The prey biomass on the Great Plains has been so severely that it is biologically mandated that not one more prairie dog be shot.
The prairie dogs cannot afford to engage in the behavior that they engage in the face of shooting. They expand their colonies at significantly lower rates, and they spend much more time underground—even with light shooting. This is what shooting does. Shooting does not by any stretch of the imagination lead to sustainable populations. This is not a "save-’em-and-shoot-’em" kind of situation we have here. This is a situation where the express goal of most prairie dog shooters [is] to eradicate prairie dogs. The National Wildlife Federation summed this up very nicely in their petition by looking at the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, where we had 120 shooter days on the weekends. Shooters claim they can kill upwards of 50 prairie dogs per day, per shooter. This means 6,000 prairie dogs every day on the weekends. The Great Plains cannot afford that activity. I will also add that the Forest Service did restrict shooting on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in the face of this.
I would suggest that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can list the prairie dog as threatened—the black-tailed prairie dog. Surely, when a creature is under 1% of what she used to be, we must do all we can to protect what little remains. And when that creature sustains more than 170 vertebrate species—and the science is overwhelming, that they sustain over 170 vertebrate species—then our duties are amplified. There is no question that the black-tailed prairie dog and its ecosystem are biologically threatened. As such, we must provide it with statutory protection.
Finally, the U.S. Forest Service can start managing its National Grasslands for wildlife as well as cattle. Prairie dogs and cattle get along. This is no longer a question; it was solved repeatedly in the Journal of Range Management, a journal which historically has not been at the forefront of wildlife advocacy. Since 1977, we have good data showing that they’re compatible.
Our National Grasslands seem at present to be managed for a few individuals—public lands ranchers, who have historically pushed for the poisoning of native wildlife. U.S. Forest Service has done nothing to counter this prejudice, and they must be called on this history of wildlife decimation, and they must start managing the National Grasslands for the wildlife that will naturally be found there—the black-tailed prairie dog.
As an aside, I have walked many miles on the National Grasslands. I’ve spent long days on the Pawnee National Grasslands, and I have watched, waited from afar, looked for a flicker of life on colonies that are dozens or hundreds of acres, but they are devoid of life. I have walked on the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, where there is a several-thousand acre complex. I’ve picked up dozens of shell casings as I walked. I’ve walked on the Comanche National Grasslands using old Forest Service maps that show prairie dog colonies that have long since gone by. And the only way I find a prairie dog colony is by letting the hawks be my guide.
This is an ecosystem we can save, and it is an ecosystem worth saving. And we have two choices, two visions. We can have a Great Plains with its skies graced by raptors and its landscapes dotted with foxes and coyotes and burrowing owls and mountain plovers, or we can have a Great Plains that is devoid of life. We are the only thing which can choose between those two visions.
So, in terms of becoming involved, I would urge you to become involved with groups that are actively involved with these issues. You can act as an individual. Acting as a group, you have a little more voice. There are several citizens groups that are popping up along the Front Range, comprised of regular people that have seen colony after colony bulldozed and do not want to see it happening anymore.
We all have a duty to push the preservation and restoration of this ecosystem. We have a duty to urge these agencies to adopt policies with tangible, beneficial outcomes for black-tailed prairie dogs. Anything less, and this ecosystem will disappear.
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