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WildEarth Guardians and a coalition of scientists and conservation groups challenge a plan to translocate and lethally trap approximately 300 Utah Prairie Dogs from the Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute tribal lands in Cedar City, Utah WildEarth Guardians is strongly opposed to proposed Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute Tribal LandHabitat Conservation Plan, as it will be a set-back for Utah prairie dogs, who are facing extinction. This plan is little more than an extermination plan. It is unnecessary and presents an additional biological threat to the Utah prairie dogs. In 2003, WildEarth Guardians and other groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to reclassify the Utah prairie dog to Endangered status under the Endangered Species Act. The proposed plan provides more evidence that the Service is failing to conserve the species or even protect it from extinction. Rather, despite the critically imperiled status of this species, the Service - the agency embued with the responsibility of recovering the species - treats Utah prairie dogs as a “nuisance” and indeed refers to them this way, despite the desperate biological straits of this small mammal. The proposed plan should be withdrawn, given the numerous violations of the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and the lack of a legitimate justification for such a significant increase in killing of a listed species. We urge the Service to fulfill its duties to conserve - i.e., recover - this species, rather than subscribe to the outdated perception of the Utah prairie dog as a nuisance species to be controlled. |
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