Courtesy of your tax dollars, we bring you “the de-lousing of the dogs”
Yahoo News has a front page story from South Dakota’s AP reporter Chet Brokaw on how the federal government is in a race against time in their efforts to save prairie dogs from having their numbers thinned from sylvatic fever:
Representatives of federal agencies and some conservation groups have taken a double-barreled approach to try to stop the spread of plague and save prairie dogs and ferrets in the 20-mile-long Conata Basin, a portion of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands that lies just south of the Badlands in southwestern South Dakota.
This summer, a crew of four has buzzed across the prairie on all-terrain vehicles, pausing frequently to spray white insecticide dust into prairie dog burrows to kill fleas.
After dark, another crew moved into the area during part of the summer to shine spotlights across the grasslands, trap ferrets and vaccinate them against the plague.
and…
Jonathan Proctor, Great Plains representative for Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group, said the Conata Basin is the last remaining large complex of black-tailed prairie dogs on the Great Plains since the plague destroyed two in Montana and Wyoming. Prairie dogs must be protected because they are important not only to ferrets, but also to hawks, burrowing owls and many other species, he said.
“Even with the loss of almost 10,000 acres of prairie dogs, Conata Basin still remains the largest and most important prairie dog complex on federal lands in the Great Plains. It’s worth all these efforts to save it,” Proctor said.
and for an opposing view…
“Nature took care of it, didn’t it?” Shirley Kudma said. “There’s the plague and the prairie dogs, and that’s nature taking care of the expansion.”
Read it all here.
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Comments
Thank you, thank you very much. I point out the massive +56 style grammar error, and nadda. I submit the proper etticate, such as Sibby does not follow, would be to ack it, and let the post be, or fix it, and delete the post leaving only you (PP) and me (grudznick) who really know about your horrible Sibby-like transgression.
THAT kind of spelling error, in a subject line, in a “blog” as important as this. THAT. THAT would probably subject you to being banished from Sen. Thune’s office.
Did the feds file environmental impact statements and take comments from the public before they started poisoning fleas in Conata Basin? And if not, why not? Isn’t the federal government subject to it’s own laws, rules, and regulations that the rest of us must abide by?
Aren’t fleas also living creatures? Why execute the poor little things just to help another less hardy species?
OK, Sibby. “we being you?”