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Update: The black-tailed prairie
dog in Colorado
6 February 2000
Contact: Nicole Rosmarino, Wildlife Coordinator for Rocky Mountain Animal Defense; Prairie Conservation Coordinator for the Biodiversity Legal Foundation
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFWS) decided on February 3, 2000 that the black-tailed prairie dog (BTPD) warrants protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. However, USFWS will refrain from granting this species of prairie dog that protection due to higher priority species in need of protection. In reality, USFWS will not list the black-tailed prairie dog because of political opposition from ranchers, developers, and all eleven states within the range of the black-tailed prairie dog.
In Colorado, that political opposition has been and continues to be intense, and most visibly stems from Governor Owens, his Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Director Greg Walcher, the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA), the Colorado Attorney General and, yes, the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW). All of those individuals and agencies contradict the USFWS finding that the black-tailed prairie dog is biologically imperiled. Instead, these individuals and agencies are asserting that prairie dogs are widespread, common, and undeserving of federal protection. The Colorado state-level political opposition to federal protection for the black-tailed prairie dog culminated in the explicit threat of a lawsuit from Walcher, CDA Director Don Ament, and Attorney General Ken Salazar if the USFWS listed the BTPD as threatened. This threat of a lawsuit was asserted despite the fact that ONLY scientific, biological considerations may be taken into account in USFWS findings on petitions. So, Colorado officials were demanding that the USFWS violate federal law.
Now, we find that the DNR and DOW have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) covering prairie dogs (all three species found in the state) within Colorado. Have Colorado state officials and agencies had a change of heart, and become prairie dog advocates?
No. Here's the evidence:
1. There is not one iota of protection for the black-tailed prairie dog in the Colorado prairie dog MOU. Rather, it is a plan to collect information. As we are poised on the brink of ecosystemic decline with the reduction of black-tailed prairie dogs to under 1% of their historic numbers, we are long past the point where simple data collection will suffice. This species needs real protection now, and the MOU abysmally fails to provide it.
2. Colorado refuses to sign the interstate black-tailed prairie dog interstate agreement on account of the agreements disclosure that the black-tailed prairie dog and the ecosystem it supports may be facing biological peril. Regardless, this agreement provides no direct protection for prairie dogs and, in fact, is simply a plan to create more plans. It is oriented primarily toward data collection. Although data collection is important in determining how to manage imperiled species, it is not sufficient. In the interim, meaningful protections must be provided for imperiled species, such as the black-tailed prairie dog. The interstate agreement resoundingly fails on this count.
3. The State of Colorado has erected road-blocks to prairie dog reintroduction. Although prairie dogs should be protected where they exist, when there are no other options, they should be relocated. Furthermore, sites such as the Rocky Mountain Arsenal would not presently have prairie dogs unless relocations had taken place. Relocations can therefore serve an important conservation and ecological restoration purpose (although, again, they must be a last resort). Yet, Owens happily supported SB 99-111, which seriously handicapped relocations by requiring county commissioner approval when prairie dogs are relocated from one county into another county within Colorado. Since land prices are cost-prohibitive and land availability is scant within those counties in which prairie dogs are being displaced by development, this law seriously circumscribed the ability of private parties to supply prairie dog relocation sites. Furthermore, public lands are not an option as prairie dog receiving sites, due to intransigence on the part of the Colorado State Land Board, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife (and, in Colorado at least, the US Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management refuse to accept prairie dogs onto their vast, prairie-dog bereft holdings).
To be fair, more progressive DOW employees have attempted to have two state wildlife areas designated as prairie dog receiving sites in recent months, but those attempts have met with staunch opposition from some of the residents near those wildlife areas. The DOW consequently backed off, and those wildlife areas were *not* approved as prairie dog receiving sites. It would be very difficult to obtain adjacent property owner approval near ANY state wildlife area suitable for prairie dogs, and, given this political reality, the DOW has basically removed its state wildlife areas as receiving sites by giving these property owners veto power over relocation plans.
Furthermore, on the heels of SB 99-111, the DOW crafted an administrative directive which basically requires adjacent landowner approval for certification of private land for prairie dog relocation. Therefore, in addition to not assisting citizens in fighting SB 99-111, the DOW has placed an equally restrictive condition on prairie dog relocation. Early in the SB 99-111 debate last winter and spring, a DOW employee who was quoted in the Denver Post when he stated that the DOW did not require such adjacent landowner approval, was reproached by higher-ups in the DOW for what he said.
4. The DOW routinely advises developers and other landowners to poison prairie dogs.
5. The Colorado Department of Agriculture has continued to fear-monger about prairie dogs, despite irrefutable scientific evidence (20 years worth) that prairie dogs do *not* pose an economic threat to ranching. In short, we cannot for one second believe that conditions are improving for BTPDs in Colorado. In fact, there is much evidence that state elected and non-elected officials have aggravated hostilities against this species, and the ecosystem it supports. We cannot accept speculations that black-tailed prairie dogs will be effectively conserved. We must demand meaningful, far-reaching protections now. There is no doubt the species is imperiled. The USFWS found that it is threatened, and they do not reach such conclusions lightly. In fact, it usually takes a court order for them to admit a species needs protection. Given this knowledge, we, as conservationists and as citizens, need to demand that our state government stop doing everything within its power to protect those economic interests who have historically caused the imperilment of this species. The State of Colorado should designated the black-tailed prairie dog a species of special concern, and should protect it from anthropogenic threats such as poisoning, shooting, bulldozing, and plowing.
Suggestions:
1. On private land, state officials are oriented toward monetary and other incentives. Those incentives may be helpful for prairie dog conservation, but are not sufficient.
2. BTPDs should be actively recovered on public lands, including USFS, BLM, school lands, state wildlife areas, and county and municipal lands which are biologically suitable.
3. The hunting season on prairie dogs should be closed. BTPDs are a threatened species, and should be treated as such by the DOW.
4. Prairie dog poisoning should be outlawed. BTPDs are a threatened species, and should be treated as such by the DOW and CDA. Moreover, it is contrary to the state ban on trapping, poisoning, and snaring, given that prairie-dog-burrow-inhabiting species protected by that amendment (prairie dogs themselves are not protected) to the Colorado Constitution are likely poisoned when prairie dog burrows are poisoned.
This does *not* leave landowners with prairie dogs with no options. In fact, rotational grazing programs and the use of visual barriers has been found to be very effective in controlling the movement of prairie dogs. In addition, land developers should not assume that their plans for development will be rubber-stamped just because they have made certain speculations on their land's value. Rather, citizens in the Front Range should be able to affect land development plans and if that means actually protecting prairie dog colonies and having healthy *human* communities, rather than converting our last remaining natural areas to asphalt, such is the nature of democracy.