A Fresh Battle In South Dakota's Prairie Dog War

WALL, S.D. -- Here on the sun-parched prairie, where rain seems as rare as gold dust, the fight over federal grassland is unending, pitting the backers of the crowd-pleasing prairie dog against the supporters of the humble cow. This week, the Bush administration could open the door to poisoning more of the furry rodents in order to help the cattle.

A new environmental assessment will say that more prairie dog colonies can safely be targeted. Although the U.S. Forest Service will not make a decision until after a 45-day public comment period, conservation activists started to complain even before federal staff members in recent days mailed the document to politicians and advocates.

Challenging ranchers who rely on public land for grazing, activists warned that a reduced habitat for prairie dogs would pose setbacks for Great Plains biodiversity and fragile communities of black-footed ferrets. The ferrets, masked members of the weasel family, were all but extinct a decade ago but have slowly been returning with careful attention from the federal government.

It happens that the ferrets, often called the most endangered mammal in North America, prefer one delicacy to all others: prairie dogs. They eat almost nothing else.

The controversy is unfolding as ranchers feel embattled and environmentalists feel emboldened by the national momentum toward conservation and "green" policies. Myron Williams, a prominent rancher in Wall, just north of the contested Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, has been pressing political appointees in the Bush administration to act while they still can.

"You'll always have to fight it, but it'll probably be worse under some administrations," Williams said from behind the wheel of his pickup in Badlands National Park. "Prairie dogs have always been there and they always will be, and we've just got to find a way to live with them. But there's a limit."

Although prairie dogs were once considered at risk themselves, the population has grown, and ranchers may do what they like to the critters on their own land. The contest is over taxpayer-owned land, where various public and private interests compete.

Even within the government, there is disagreement on how the land -- and the prairie dog population -- should be managed. Federal authorities have been dusting burrows with flea powder to protect prairie dogs from sylvatic plague in some areas while allowing poisoning in others.

Mike Lockhart, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife official responsible for the black-footed ferret recovery program, is deeply worried about potential changes to the rules governing prairie dogs in the Conata Basin, the area near Wall where ferrets have staged their strongest recovery. There are now 100 breeding pairs, compared with the 18 ferrets discovered in Meeteetse, Wyo., in 1981, when many naturalists assumed the species was extinct.

Lockhart believes that prairie dog colonies need to become larger, not smaller, and that public land is the key.

"If we're going to be honest about what we need to recover the species, we're going to have substantially more habitat base than we've got right now," Lockhart said. "If we can't make room for recovery of species like this on federal public land in a meaningful way, we will not be able to recover the species. Period."

Roughly 16 ranchers have permits to graze 2,300 head of cattle on the grasslands of the Conata Basin and an area nearby. Environmentalists contend that their numbers are too small to justify changes in wildlife protections.