By MICHAEL WILSON
(NYT) 1558 words The beams of four spotlights swept the dust and rock and patches of grass growing like uneven stubble in the ''Nothing,'' said Doug Albertson, 36, a
fat pack on his back carrying the battery for his 100-watt spotlight,
electronic tracking equipment and -- despite the hour -- lunch, for the group
planned to keep looking under the stars and full moon until dawn. The green eyes belong to one of the most
endangered mammals in Yet the ferret, an obscure member of the
weasel family, is behind a longstanding battle between conservationists and
ranchers over land use and government-sponsored poisoning and the familiar
question of what comes first, working people or little animals. It is not that people who live here have
any quarrel with black-footed ferrets. Few have even seen one. It is the
animal that the ferrets eat that is the problem, its formal name -- Cynomys ludovicianus --
surfacing in a recent flurry of back-and-forth lawsuits and government
reports: the cute and chubby and insatiable prairie dog. As the area has been struck by drought,
prairie dogs have scampered over property lines and occupied neighboring
ranches, devouring the vegetation on acres where cattle graze. Last fall,
after a ban on killing prairie dogs was lifted, the federal Department of
Agriculture poisoned 5,000 acres of the public lands in the A long-term solution was promised this
year, and now, landowners and conservationists alike are waiting for that
management plan from the federal Forest Service, expected as soon as next
week. Here, prairie dogs are derided as darlings
of the tourists and city dwellers, who have been known to photograph them or
to keep them as pets. Nonlethal means of relocating
them come and go, like flushing soapy water into their holes -- sending the
sudsy rodents scampering out -- and the so-called Dog-Gone vacuum, invented
by a Charles Kruse, 46, pointed out a photo
taken on his property in the tiny nearby town of ''It just makes you want to throw up,''
Mr. Kruse said. ''I care about endangered species, too, but we've got to have
some common sense. ''I like ferrets, but I like people,
too,'' he continued. ''It'd be like a bunch of cowboys coming to Mr. Kruse, a father of five, said he lost
70 percent of his combined cattle, wheat and hay business last year, and he
and a few dozen other ranchers have sued and lobbied the state and federal
governments to resume poisoning and recreational shooting of prairie dogs. The Forest Service's plan is expected to
spell out whether poisoning will be allowed, whether nonlethal
plans will be ordered or some combination of the two. Appeals are practically
a certainty. Conservationists said the ferret's survival
was their main concern. ''If we don't maintain this critical
habitat, the ferret will not survive,'' said Jonathan Proctor, 37, with the
group Defenders of Wildlife. ''And if we can't do it here, we can't do it
anywhere.'' The black-footed ferret was already
believed to be extinct by the late 1970's. Indeed, it seemed easier to track
Bigfoot: scientists who had spent years looking had never seen a ferret. Then
on The ferrets were reintroduced to the wild
in the ''The bottom line, from a biological
standpoint, is we have to have sufficient space or habitats for ferrets to
occupy,'' said Mike Lockhart, 54, the black-footed ferret recovery
coordinator with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. ''Even though it's
the best, it's still very small, and it's still very vulnerable.'' Prairie dogs, meanwhile, have enjoyed a
population explosion here, for reasons more complex than simply the benign
hand of government programs. In the 1990's, years of rainfall brought more
grass, keeping the rodents fed without making them travel. ''Acreage shrunk, but density
skyrocketed,'' said Don Bright, 49, a supervisor with the Forest Service in Coincidentally at that same time, the
prairie dogs were feared to be a threatened species, and poisoning was banned
for four years while an investigation ruled out that claim. The years since 2000 have mostly been dry,
and prairie dog towns have rapidly expanded over the landscape in search of
food. ''Those prairie dogs start eating themselves out of house and home,''
Mr. Bright said. Suddenly, they seemed to be everywhere:
Prairie dogs standing lookout over the mounds, at attention on hind legs,
emitting a squeaky bark at the first sign of trouble. This was the sight, and
sound, that greeted Mr. Kruse as he turned into his gravel drive at the end
of the workday last year. ''The prairie dogs were eating the prickly
cactus,'' he said, still amazed. ''It looked like a plowed field.'' In 2004, the government began poisoning
the prairie dogs, with ranchers and workers first laying out oats near the
mounds, then substituting them with oats laced with zinc phosphide,
which reacts with stomach acid to produce toxic gases. The mounds disappeared
from Mr. Kruse's property, but he is not taking any chances on their
returning, and has remained active with his neighbors under the umbrella name
Nuisance Abatement Group. He is in favor of a proposed one-mile-deep line of
poison along where private property borders public lands, and for shooting
prairie dogs, but he adds, ''They're a lot harder to hit than you might
think.'' Mr. Proctor, with the conservation group,
called recreational shooting ''enraging'' and believes the poisoning to be
inhumane. Besides, he said, neither are necessary:
Prairie dogs cannot live in tall grass because their sentry-based alarm
system will be useless. Therefore, deferred grazing, or a buffer of tall
grass, will keep them out, he said. Mr. Bright, with the Forest Service, is a
chief author of the coming management plan, but he would not discuss its
contents. ''It's one of the tougher decisions I have made in my career,'' he
said. ''My stomach has churned, and I've gone sleepless nights.'' It seems no one whose path crosses the
ferret's sleeps much. In the But the ferret, as if sensing all the
commotion above, stayed under for the rest of the night. Photos: Several dozen |
|
|
