The National Park Service biologist, Eric York, 37, performed a necropsy of a mountain lion carcass last October, and approximately five days later he developed a high temperature, mild nausea, muscle aches, chills, a cough and streaks of blood in his saliva...
York died several days later...
Since prairie dog colonies are full of fleas, and since prairie dogs carry Plague, ranchers are always happy to have hunters “directly reduce” the population of prairie dogs.
However, a vacuum truck does a far more efficient job. The Roto-Rooter Man has a whole new career ahead of him.
PS I have a modest suggestion:
Have the ‘dogs’ released on suitable lands owned by PETA types and/or employees of the Dept. of Wildlife.
PPS Some AgencyScientist might thus be able to publish a paper about a rare, newly discovered, ‘Brown Prairie Dog’. Given the infrequent rains in much of the West, that paper might even be published before the error was discovered. I suggest the Journal of Conservation Biology as the most likely, and most appropriate, journal for such a paper.