South Dakota Prairie Dog Plan
Has Skeptics From Both Sides

RAPID CITY, S.D. — Changes in South Dakota's prairie dog management plan are being accepted by the state's ranchers with cautious optimism. Radical environmentalists, however, say they may intensify their efforts to get the critters listed as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Members of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association worry that any prairie dog agreement between the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would lead to restrictions on private land use.

State officials say their plan is a way to protect private landowners from federal restrictions.

The changes were made after ranchers objected to a draft plan proposed in the fall of 2001.

Mark DeVries of Belvidere, S.D., wildlife committee co-chairman for the Stockgrowers Association, is skeptical about the plan, though he says the changes are more in line with the Stockgrowers' position.

South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel says his department and the state Game, Fish and Parks Department have agreed to changes in the original plan that include protection for private property rights, state management authority over prairie dogs, and eliminating impacts on neighboring property for landowners who don't control prairie dogs.

The plan allows paying landowners for not poisoning prairie dogs in specific areas.

Some ranchers worry that prairie dogs from those areas could spread onto neighboring land. Gabriel says they may require buffer zones around the incentive prairie dog areas.

Changes also include creating a single acreage trigger level for a ban on poisoning prairie dogs. The original plan had a two-tiered trigger.

If the number of acres inhabited by prairie dogs fell to 75,000, the state would halt the sale of poison. If the prairie dog population fell to 65,000, the state would ban poisoning.

A 1999 aerial survey estimates prairie dogs inhabit 142,000 acres in South Dakota. The plan would set a goal for prairie dogs to populate 220,000 acres.

Gabriel says, however, that new surveys will be conducted before a final acreage goal is set.

Along with changes in the management plan, a proposed law would require the state legislature's approval of any plan that includes incentive payments to landowners who allow prairie dog hunting or that limits landowner rights to kill prairie dogs.

The proposed legislation won't come up for approval until 2003, giving the state and interested parties more time for study.

DeVries says he's worried that using federal tax money to provide incentive payments could open the door to federal control and lawsuits by activist groups that could tie up private land.

There is also concern by the ranchers about some parts of the prairie dog management plan, including provisions concerning species dependent on prairie dogs, such as black-footed ferrets and burrowing owls.

Leonard Benson, an Oral, S.D., rancher and member of the prairie dog working group, says landowners in the incentive program should be able to kill prairie dogs outside of protected areas.

Jonathan Proctor with the Predator Conservation Alliance, based in Montana, says his group opposes killing prairie dogs anywhere.

Pete Gober with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that if the agency accepts the plan, and the prairie dog later becomes listed, the agreement would prevent any restrictions on private lands. An agreement would not necessarily prevent restrictions on federal land, however.

Gober says that if enough states come up with acceptable plans, the prairie dog could be taken off the candidate list.

The National Wildlife Federation, Biodiversity Legal Foundation and Predator Conservation Alliance petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1998 to list the black-tailed prairie dog as a "threatened" species.