Posted on 08/18/2006 3:07:44 PM PDT by Graybeard58
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Conservation groups served notice Thursday they intended to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for refusing to study whether to give federal protection to prairie dogs known for their ability to warn one another of danger in explicit detail.
One expert, Con Slobodchikoff, a biology professor at Northern Arizona University, said the Gunnison's prairie dog has the most sophisticated communications yet documented among non-humans.
They can whistle different alarm calls for different predators that signal particular manners of escape, his studies have found.
The alarm calls also describe the general size, color and speed of the predator, he said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says poisoning all but wiped out the Gunnison's prairie dog from 1916 to 1961, but that more recent decades may have sustained a recovery in parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
The agency said in a Federal Register notice that it had no reliable estimates of the current population, but acknowledged available habitat for the prairie dog has been shrinking and that the plague can decimate isolated populations, though it's less clear if prairie dogs are occupying new territory when they move from old stomping grounds.
The Fish and Wildlife Service filed a "negative" finding in February, saying it wouldn't conduct a more exhaustive review of possible protections under the Endangered Species Act. The agency, however, said it plans to re-examine the prairie dog's status early next year, after consulting wildlife agencies in the Four Corners states.
Filing notice of a possible lawsuit Thursday were the Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, a half-dozen other conservation groups, five biologists and dozens of others.
"No one expected a negative finding on our petition," Nicole Rosmarino, conservation director for Forest Guardians, said Thursday.
Just as unexpected, she said, was the agency's pledge to reopen the matter by this February.
"They've never done that when they issue negative findings. So I think it was a clear admission that something's wrong here," Rosmarino said.
Pete Gober, a Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor in Pierre, S.D., who handled the petition, didn't return a phone call after business hours Thursday from The Associated Press.
Among the biologists suing is Bob Luce, former coordinator of the Interstate Prairie Dog Team, a working group of wildlife officials from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
In a statement, Luce said the Gunnison's prairie dog was clearly in decline across its range. He called it "an ecological cornerstone of the high desert" that deserved a range of protections.
Forest Guardians and 73 other conservation groups or advocates had petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to open an inquiry that could lead to a listing under the Endangered Species Act, which can limit development on public or private land.
Gunnison's prairie dog (Latin name Cynomys gunnisoni) is one of five species found in North America. The Utah prairie dog is listed as threatened, while the Mexican prairie dog is listed as endangered. There's also black-tailed and white-tailed prairie dogs.
www.forestguardians.org
www.fws.gov
These "conservation groups" (liberal enviro-nutjobs) do not know ANYTHING about Prarie Dogs. Other than they are something else "cute" to cause trouble over. They know nothing of the ability of this animal to proliferate, adapt, and if left alone, would infest any country side with huge colonies of them...
No, just more liberal nutjobs looking for another stupid, unjustifed cause to create trouble with.
I guess this would include the Dimocrats.....Oh, nevermind, they don't have a sophisticated communications system....
There goes my excuse for buying a 22-250 tack driver. Heck, I may buy it anyway and shoot paper prarie dog targets.
I saw a video at a gun show of prarie dogs being shot with those ballistic-tip bullets with the little plastic tip in the hollow point. The prarie dogs exploded into chunks when hit. It was pretty kewl.
Gentlemen, start your varmint guns.
And, remember: Shoot, shovel, and shut up.
Interesting that the enviro-freaks are using the term 'conservationists' these days. In the past, the term was clearly connected to sportsmen/women, farmers and others with land-use connections. In fact, the environmentalists are entirely different critters. Maybe they find their usual monikers are winning them more enemies than friends?
I've got a video of terrorists in Afghanistan being shot by .50 cal sniper rifles. Same thing.
"Press One for English, press two for Spanish, press three for Prairie Dog."
I went on a prairie dog shoot/hunt a few years ago in s w Colorado and the enviro-wackos thought they would scare off the prairie dogs by blowing horns and rattling things and blowing whistles. They just made the critters pop up and look around-we had good shooting and the wackos went more wacko.
There goes my excuse for buying a 22-250 tack driver. Heck, I may buy it anyway and shoot paper prarie dog targets.
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I find it hard to believe anyone (mindless liberals excepted) could figure out how to significantly reduce the population of whistle-pigs. If have seen colonies so vast, beyond where the eye can see. They are more prolific than ILLEGAL ALIENS. And that says something.
Just enviro-nutjobs making trouble where they has been none for hundreds of years...liberals have very little to do with their little minds.
Its too bad that the enviro-nutjobs are not an "unprotected species with no closed season"!!!
Beware -- this prairie dog shoots back! ;o)
Next thing that you know, they'll be agitating to give them the right to vote...
...rotten, little rodents are everywhere, like roaches in the east. ...can't get rid of enough of 'em. The peaks are riddled with 'em.
A prairie dog is a damn rodent. Very hard to wipe out. OBVIOUSLY the eco-freaks are scheming to put more land off limits to development because of some mangy rodent
If it is the same one someone sent me, the terrorists are actually Rock Chucks. Look closely and you can see some crawling around in the rocks prior to the shots.
Yes the ballistic tips does blow them into little chunks. But so does a good serria bliz or any good vel hollow point. I lunched quite a few into the air parts and chunks all over the place.
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