We take issue with Gary Harmon’s recent opinions about white-tailed prairie dogs. As retired wildlife biologists who routinely worked on prairie-dog issues, we view them differently.

The prairie dog is an important member of Colorado’s wildlife — like it or not. Scientific literature from many sources documents their importance. Ask yourself, if prairie dogs are doing so well, then why did black-footed ferrets nearly go extinct in North America? Fortunately, the black-footed ferret is now attempting a comeback in Rio Blanco and Moffat counties thanks both to the relative abundance of white-tailed prairie dogs hanging on there and significant effort by man.

Just like deer and elk, prairie dogs don’t know they can often be in the wrong place causing damage to private property and agriculture. We, therefore, agree that the private landowner has some rights to solve prairie-dog problems, but believe strongly that such rights should not extend onto public lands.

White-tailed prairie dogs have been trapped, poisoned, shot and their habitat destroyed for the past 100-plus years; they currently represent a fraction of their historic abundance. If we lose the white-tailed prairie dog, Mr. Harmon’s prophecy of “… spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars …” on prairie dogs will happen. But this will not be just to help prairie dogs, but to also help many other species that will decline along with them, including the black-footed ferret.

Both of us are hunters, but are troubled by a hunting ethic that condones using prairie dogs as “live targets.” What kind of message do we send our kids and grandkids that it is wrong to shoot an elk and leave it to rot, but it is OK to shoot prairie dogs just to watch them die?

GENE BYRNE
Retired Wildlife Biologist, CDOW
Palisade

BOB LEACHMAN
Retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 10:50 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.