Reservations Could hold Answer 
to Prairie Dog Conflict

April 2, 2004
Ben Shouse
Argus Leader

PINE RIDGE - South Dakota's greatest wildlife controversy is hitting hardest on its Indian reservations, where poverty and bureaucracy deepen the impact. But the reservations might prove key to easing a conflict between conservation and ranching throughout the state.

To many who live east of the Missouri River, black-tailed prairie dogs are a cute, scampering tourist attraction. Some even keep them as pets.  Environmentalists see them as a keystone species that has lost at least 98 percent of its home range.

Yet, South Dakota ranchers see prairie dogs as malicious pests that strip away the grass intended for their cattle. Even though Lakota philosophy regards all creatures as irreplaceable and valuable, many Native American ranchers despise them, too.

"They're just a rat, that's all they are," said Scott Cuny, a rancher and Oglala Sioux Tribe member.

Ranchers say government conservation efforts cut into tribal revenue and could even bankrupt cattle operations, both on and off the reservations. "The government's wanting to do to the ranchers what they did to the Indians 150 years ago," Cuny said.

Some wildlife officials and advocates say South Dakota reservations may be the last hope for preserving large, intact prairie dog ecosystems.  Those acreages alone could meet a state quota needed to keep the prairie dog off the endangered species list, which would greatly simplify management throughout the nation.

Two tribes already have plans in place that could serve as models as well as shoulder much of the state's conservation burden. Funding for such plans is uncertain, however, and reservation officials are loath to jeopardize their economies to carry the burden.

Cash for controlling prairie dogs on reservations has often run short, leaving large swaths of high-density dog towns, ideal for black-footed ferrets, the country's most endangered mammal. Towns in other states are often beset by plague, a disease that fragments them, making them inhospitable to ferrets.

As a result, four of the five best spots to restore the ferret, which had dwindled to only 14 animals in 1991, are on South Dakota reservations.

Also, to avoid listing the prairie dog itself as endangered, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says South Dakota must maintain 200,000 acres of prairie dogs. A recent survey puts the total at more than 360,000 acres, but at least 220,000 of those are on reservations.

That leaves Indian Country on the hook for the Endangered Species Act, which restricts prairie dog poisoning, the only effective means of control.

Pine Ridge poisoned more than 100,000 acres in the 1980s, but the act makes that impossible today.

Instead, the wildlife service is pushing for management plans that would allow ranching to coexist with prairie dogs and associated species, including ferrets, swift foxes, raptors and snakes.

The first tribe to embrace that idea was Cheyenne River.

"Cheyenne River was really smart," said Pete Gober of the wildlife service's Pierre office. "They packaged their efforts and said, look, we're not out to eradicate prairie dogs, we just want to manage them.  We've got a prairie management plan."

The plan reserves a place on the land for prairie dogs instead of treating them purely as pests.

"It has to be done," said Mike Claymore of Cheyenne River's prairie management program. "Nobody else is going to do it. To do more than give lip service to the traditional Lakota way of life, we have to do what we're doing."

Rotating cattle grazing

The program minimizes prairie dog expansion by rotating cattle to different pastures, letting the land rest. Claymore says that keeps the grass too tall for colonization and maximizes long-term productivity.

The program has worked since 1996, and has used poison only near populated areas and on less than 1,000 acres of a single ranch.

Congress gives the program about $1 million per year. That helps the 13,000-acre ferret reintroduction site, but also ranchers and, in turn, tribal income from grazing fees.

On Pine Ridge and Rosebud, however, things are different. There are at least 100,000 and 50,000 prairie dog acres, respectively, compared to about 44,000 on the larger Cheyenne River reservation.

Claymore says Pine Ridge and Rosebud are overrun because more ranchers overgraze their land. Others argue that the soil and grass types make prairie dog invasion easier farther south.

Whatever the reason, poisoning has won favor as the best way to quickly reclaim pasture.

Rosebud started a $500,000 prairie program last year, which included ferret reintroduction on about 10,000 acres. But Rosebud's Tribal Land Enterprise also poisoned about 15,000 acres of prairie dogs, and plans to poison at least that much this year.

Ben Black Bear, the agency's director, said that was part of a trade-off negotiated with state and federal wildlife officials to help the ferrets.

"They were looking for areas where they could reintroduce them, and we were looking to do more to control the prairie dogs," he said.

Money for control

Pine Ridge officials say they would like a similar deal to let them poison around 90 percent of their dog towns. A Bureau of Indian Affairs biologist says it could take one to five years for the money to come through.

Jimmy Sam, head of the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Agency, says the money is overdue.

The bureau neglected its prairie dog control responsibility in the 1990s, he said, and now the fish and wildlife service claims the wildlife value of the land is too great for aggressive control.

"They're looking at the reservation lands as sacrifice zones to carry that burden," he said. "They're not coming across with the dollars necessary for the tribes to maintain their own economies while they're making that sacrifice."

Some wildlife officials and environmentalists say prairie dogs could be a boon instead of a sacrifice.

"We think that the potential exists for the Pine Ridge Reservation to capitalize on their good fortune in having large numbers of prairie dogs, and not feel that they need to reduce them to 10,000 acres," said Sterling Miller, a biologist with the National Wildlife Federation in Missoula, Mont.

John Sidle, endangered species coordinator with the U.S. Forest Service, said poisoning should not be the focus. He said ranchers should instead consider reducing the number of animal unit months, a measure of livestock grazing intensity.

"You don't hear about reductions in AUM's, you don't hear about any new or novel ideas such as, 'Welcome to the world's largest prairie dog town,' " he said. "There is no tourism, even though it is located clearly on a tourist route.

"I feel we ought to pay the tribe several million dollars a year to manage this area as a prairie dog area."

Few economic options

But Sam said the idea of a large refuge is not realistic.

"It's easy for someone from the outside to say, 'Let's dedicate a major part of the reservation to that specific use,' and it's not so easy when you're the policy makers in the tribe," he said. "You've got a fairly limited range of economic options within a reservation setting, so that if you do impose upon one important component, the ranching for example, what else do you have?"

He added that ranchers on the reservation usually lease their land, so a refuge would put them out of business without any financial compensation.

Claymore of Cheyenne River agrees that reservations should not bear the burden of meeting endangered-species goals. But he is skeptical about efforts to knock back prairie dog towns on Rosebud and Pine Ridge.

"Poisoning's not going to work. For that reason alone, they should look for other alternatives," he said.

His tribe's experience using poison pellets on a small patch of land shows it's too costly.

"We're on our 15th can of pellets. Fifteen cans, and that's only 62.9 acres," he said. "Extrapolate that out to 25,000 acres. Pellet money alone starts getting up into hundreds of thousands of dollars."

But others say they are fed up, and if money doesn't come through for poisoning, they are ready to escalate the conflict.

"About the only way I can see is to sue the BIA and fish and wildlife service," Cuny said.

Introducing ferrets

Though resolution may be a ways off on Pine Ridge, there is hope elsewhere. Jeff Kelly, director of game, fish and parks for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said it is considering a prairie management plan with ferret reintroduction as a major component.

But even those who favor ecosystem restoration agree that continued neglect will only mean continued animosity.

"Unfortunately, we've been forced onto these small reservations where we have to compete with the prairie dogs," said Fred DuBray, who helped start the Cheyenne River prairie management program and now heads the Intertribal Bison Cooperative.

"So things have to change accordingly, and there has to be a holistic approach that goes along with it.

"Indian people have continued to suffer losses because of the way that they look at and value the land. It started when they didn't believe in ownership, so another group of people came and discovered it and took it."

The added irony is that government-imposed wildlife conservation, though compatible with the Lakota world view, could end up inflicting the loss this time around.

Reach Ben Shouse at 331-2318.

_____________________________________
Jonathan Proctor, Grassland Program Associate
Predator Conservation Alliance
2900 E. 23rd Ave., Gate 7, Denver, CO  80205-5735
Phone: 303-376-4982; Fax: 303-376-4806
http://www.predatorconservation.org
"Saving a place for America's predators"

Updated 19 July 2006 .