Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Friday, July 21, 2006
Editorial from ”The Spectrum” Regarding Utah’s Prairie Dog and WildEarth Guardians’ Response

After slowing down plans to translocate and lethally trap about 300 Utah Prairie Dogs from the Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute tribal lands in Cedar City, Utah, the local paper editorialized on the matter and published WildEarth Guardians response
Contact: The Spectrum

WildEarth Guardians and a coalition of scientists and conservation groups challenged a plan to translocate and lethally trap approximately 300 Utah Prairie Dogs from the Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute tribal lands in Cedar City, Utah. The plan amounts to a massive extermination, given the abysmal 5% success rate of Utah Prairie Dog translocation, and the use of body-crushing traps to kill remaining prairie dogs. The proposal called for translocating prairie dogs to county-owned land where off-road vehicle use, livestock grazing, crop agriculture, hunting, and even rodenticide application would be allowed.

In response to our challenge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that translocation would not proceed this year in order to give the Service time to review WildEarth Guardians’ comments. A local Cedar City newspaper editorialized, telling WildEarth Guardians to “Mind your own business,” invoking the intolerant claims about prairie dogs that have led to their severe imperilment (even that prairie dogs bark too much). We responded that “Utah prairie dogs deserve to live,” discussing prairie dogs’ keystone role, critically endangered status, complex communication system, and the need for intelligent land use planning which promotes prairie dog recovery.

View the Spectrum editorial

View WildEarth Guardians’ published response