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Small Rodents Causing Large By David Bowser LUBBOCK The ground on either side of him seems to be moving as John Hindman drives his pickup between the circles of irrigated winter wheat east of Lubbock. It's not an unusual illusion in the spring on the Southern Plains of West Texas, when wind can roll dust like a brown ground mist across fallow fields, but a closer glance on this sunny autumn morning reveals scurrying prairie dogs, not dust, covering the ground here en estimated 50,000 prairie dogs and there's not much Hindman can do about it. The black-tailed prairie dog has been nominated for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Environmental activists claim that while prairie dogs are plentiful in various places, their historic range before the European settlement of North American has dropped by 98 percent. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the black-tailed prairie dog deserves listing but there are other species that face a more immediate threat. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say the prairie dog is eighth on their waiting list to be designated an officially "endangered" species. Activist groups, however, are threatening to sue in an effort to move the Fish and Wildlife Service toward listing the plains rodent. Still just a candidate species, prairie dogs enjoy few of the legal protections of the Endangered Species Act. While they can still be hunted and killed on private land, federal land managers are now prohibiting the killing of prairie dogs on public lands across the West. Municipalities like Lubbock, a community of about 200,000 people, face a public backlash from environmentalists and animal rights groups if they try to control the prairie dog. To activists, prairie dogs are an emotional issue. To landowners, it is an economic issue. To Hindman, it is a political issue. John Hindman is the farm manager for the City of Lubbock. Lubbock's farm uses treated effluent to raise crops, primarily wheat, which is grazed. Money from the cattle operation goes back to offset the costs of the city's wastewater program, saving taxpayers money and recycling natural resources. The city has about 4000 acres immediately east of Lubbock and another 6000 acres southeast of the city near the community of Wilson. "We don't have any prairie dogs down there, and we don't plan to have any," Hindman says of the Wilson operation. The city used to graze cattle in both locations until the prairie dogs moved in. At that point, Hindman had to move the cattle off the 4000 acres east of town. "We grow hay and bale it," Hindman says of the property east of town. "On the Wilson side, we still run cattle." Hindman says they use all of the city's secondary treated effluent water in the program that started back in 1932. "We're the largest land application site, I guess, in the United States," he adds. There is a 412 million gallon reservoir of the treated effluent water on the farm. Using that for irrigation has conserved ground water. The city's waster water treatment plant pumps out about 21 million gallons of effluent a day. Profits from the cattle operation go into the city's sewer fund to help hold costs down for the taxpayers. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department estimates that the City of Lubbock farm has between 40,000 and 50,000 prairie dogs. "I'd estimate more than that," Hindman says. The city also has to contend with the concerns of its neighbors around the farm. They worry that the prairie dogs will overrun their property, too. They also complain about the dust from the barren ground where the prairie dogs have killed off vegetation. "We've created what I call an artificial environment for the prairie dogs," Hindman says. "We took nature pretty much out of it. They just continue to multiply, and there's nothing that's slowing them down." The prairie dogs living on Lubbock's farm seem to have little to worry about. "They have plenty of food," Hindman says. There are circles of irrigated wheat where the crop has been almost totally destroyed. Prairie dogs started coming up out of Yellow House Canyon several years ago. Hindman says there was not a problem until about three years ago, when the population just exploded. "Why?" he shrugs. "I don't know, but they did." One of the reasons may be the crop that Hindman has planted. The fat little prairie dogs living on the city's farm enjoy better nutrition than most prairie dogs in the wild. Growing up on the plains as a kid near Hart, Texas, almost 100 miles north of here, Hindman is no stranger to prairie dogs, but about every 10 years or so the prairie dogs on the plains would die out. These don't die out. "The only ones that die are the ones that get run over," Hindman says. "Some of them are pretty near as gray-headed as I am." The massive numbers of prairie dogs here have caused at least one wreck, he says. A woman trying to avoid a prairie dog crossing the farm-to-market road that runs alongside the city farm swerved, went off the road and crashed through a fence. There have been several near wrecks as motorists have turned to look at the little beasts alongside the road and wandered into oncoming lanes of traffic. Whether a threat to mankind or not, Hindman knew that the prairie dogs were going to cause problems. "I always knew that when I had to control them I was going to stir up a hornet's nest," he says. "I put it off too long, probably." The city bid out the extermination process to control the prairie dogs. When they did that, the political problems arose. Environmental and animal rights groups at the national level were soon attacking the city over the plight of the prairie dogs. "It was a real big deal," Hindman says. "In my opinion and I'm not changing my opinion there's two things you can do. You either give them the farm, or you kill them." That may be a rough way of putting it, he says, but those are the choices he sees. "We've met with Texas Parks and Wildlife, we've met with Audubon," Hindman says. Soon, however, the decision on what to do with the prairie dogs was kicked up to the city's political machinery. The city started trying to work with the environmental and animal rights groups. They came up with a "relocation" program, Hindman says, in which a woman would come out and catch prairie dogs and try to find homes for them. "That's all well and good," Hindman says. "She's been doing this for years." Now, the city is paying her to come out to the farm and capture the critters, but the effort is losing ground faster every year. "These prairie dogs are having three or four pups per litter, and she comes out and catches 300 or 400," Hindman says. "We've got thousands of them." The relocation program seems to be falling farther and farther behind as the fat little rodents continue to multiply. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department suggested the City of Lubbock build barriers. "What we were trying to do is keep them out of the center pivot irrigation system," Hindman says. "We're a working farm." Texas Parks and Wildlife wanted Lubbock to build barriers around the pivots to keep the prairie dogs out. "We built models," Hindman says, "but you can't build something they can't get past." Parks and Wildlife officials suggested letting the crops grow up as barriers. "We did that," Hindman says. "That didn't stop anything." Hindman says the prairie dogs simply ran through the plant barriers that were tried. "Barriers don't work," Hindman says flatly. The activists finally agreed to let the city control the rodents under the pivots, but they wanted the corners left alone. "We have moved all the cattle off this farm because of that one issue," Hindman says. And there were other issues. Many of the activists were complaining that the cattle, not the prairie dogs, were damaging the area beneath the pivots. "I can prove that was wrong," Hindman says. The burrowing owl, which has already been declared an "endangered" species, also plays a part in Lubbock's headache. "Anything that we do," Hindman says, "we have to do after the burrowing owls hatch their chicklings and fly off." While prairie dogs do not have the protection of the Endangered Species Act yet, the burrowing owl does. "If you have prairie dogs," Hindman adds, "you will have burrowing owls." To make matters worse, the City of Lubbock ended up getting caught between regulatory agencies. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in its annual inspection of the city's use of wastewater to irrigate its crops, wanted the prairie dogs eliminated. "They told me, 'John, you've got to do something with those prairie dogs,'" Hindman says. The pivots use effluent water, and TCEQ inspectors were worried that the water was getting in the prairie dog holes and going into the Oglalla Aquifer. "I disagree with that and still do," Hindman says, "but that's what started it." Hindman says the prairie dogs build up the openings to their holes, and little if any water goes down the holes. But even the TCEQ backed off when they realized they were dealing with a species that is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. "We have not made any progress at all," Hindman says. "Not with the relocation or with the barriers, and the prairie dogs keep expanding. At this point in time, I don't know where we're going to go." Eventually, the prairie dogs are going to have to be controlled or the city will have to give the farm over to them, he says. "We've been accused of not being green," Hindman says. "That's not true. We have all kinds of wildlife. We feed our wildlife. We have a canyon area. We have deer, turkey and everything else." Wildlife, particularly wild turkey, are common in the canyons that border the farm. Along with the wildlife has come an increase in predators, but not enough of an increase to control the prairie dogs. "We have a lot of coyotes," Hindman says. The prairie dogs are getting ahead of them, too, he says. "They just eat so much," Hindman says. Hawks are plentiful, too, and seem to feast regularly on the prairie dogs, but the prairie dog population keeps growing. The Audubon Society wanted the city to put perches in the fields for the hawks. "I can't put perches under the irrigation system," Hindman says. "We've got fences for the hawks." While it would be easy for Hindman to become bitter over the headaches the prairie dogs have caused, he is actually worried about the little critters. He says the environmental activists and animal rights groups, however well-meaning they may be, are probably responsible for the deaths of more prairie dogs now than any other cause in the history of the rodents. Many private landowners are now trying to eliminate prairie dogs from their farms and ranches all across the West before the critter is listed as an endangered species and the landowners have to deal with the federal government in protecting them. Where once a rancher might have tolerated a small prairie dog colony, now many ranchers want to eliminate any evidence of prairie dog towns on their property. "It's not a natural thing," Hindman says of the situation. "We made it for them. They're going to have to be controlled." |
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