Returning to his earlier question, Smith asked Boucher if prairie dog advocates had considered alternatives to moving the animals halfway across the state.
"Yes sir, I think everyone's been trying that for a long time," Boucher said. "They go to endless meetings with endless people. We write letters until we don't even know what we're saying anymore."
By the end of the four-hour hearing, Baca County claimed victory: Senate Bill 111 passed 10 to 3. More than two weeks later it received final approval from the House. The bill is now headed to Governor Bill Owens, who is likely to sign it.
But Baca County ranchers still can't rest easy. Now it looks as if the federal government may be ready to watch the backs of some prairie dogs.
In the early 1900s, 100 million acres of prairie dog habitat graced the Great Plains region that stretched from Mexico to Canada. A recent study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that only 768,000 acres of prairie dog habitat remain, and the number is decreasing each day. The agency is considering listing the black-tailed prairie dog as a threatened species.
If the animal receives federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, that protection would override any state laws granting county commissioners local control over their prairie dog populations. Once the wildlife service proposes to protect a species, the public has a chance to comment on the proposal, and the agency responds to citizens' concerns before making a final decision. If people are still unhappy after a listing is made, they can petition the wildlife service to take the species off the list.
Federal protection--which could take at least a year to secure--may provide the compromise both sides seem unable to reach on their own. The Southern Plains Land Trust's Susan Miller says that if the species is protected, the federal regulation likely won't be as restrictive as it is for other animals. "My guess is that if the prairie dogs receive the listing, it won't totally prohibit ranchers from controlling prairie dogs, because so many states list prairie dogs as an agricultural pest," Miller says. "I think it will be a unique listing, and I think the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will try to work with everyone."
Patricia Worthing, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says it's too soon to know how lenient such a listing would be. "But we have the flexibility to help resolve any conflicts--whether real or perceived--that go along with a listing. We try to resolve issues to the benefit of the species and the humans."
Though none of the humans seem to realize it, they're all fighting for the same damn thing. For the people who love them, prairie dogs are a reminder of the days before nearly every tract of grassland turned to cement. Here and there, on the few naked pieces of land that remain, a prairie dog head pops out of its hole as if on the lookout for the dangerous predator--development--that threatens the wide-open spaces that drew most of the humans and their development here in the first place. For the people who hate prairie dogs, the fight also symbolizes a threat to their way of life. They've battled nature in order to live on those wide-open plains ever since their families settled them, and the encroaching environmentalists are just too much to stomach.
If the wildlife service decides not to protect the black-tailed prairie dog, Miller says she will call a meeting with the Baca County commissioners in the hopes that they'll change their minds and allow the animals to be transferred there. "We don't want to bulldoze in there and force this down their throats," she says. "We want their cooperation."
But if they don't cooperate, she says, the next logical step would be to try to get Senate Bill 111 overturned. "We purchased that land with the intention of creating a short-grass preserve, to which prairie dogs are essential. We have an obligation to our donors to do what we said we'd do with the property," Miller says. "We will push for preserves in every county."
But down in Baca County, Red Heath says, "If push comes to shove, things will get a little messy. I'll just leave it at that.
