WildEarth Guardians

Friday, February 9, 2007
Suit Filed Over Prairie Dog Status

ESA protection sought for threatened Black-tailed prairie dog
Contact: Albuquerque Journal

Denver, CO - Conservation groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the secretary of the interior's 2004 decision not to list the black-tailed prairie dog as "threatened," which would offer it protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court argues that the black-tailed prairie dog remains on just 1 percent to 2 percent of its historic range and the secretary's decision led to the poisoning of thousands in South Dakota.

Current populations are fragmented and isolated with only small remnants left on the prairie dogs' habitat that once spanned across the Great Plains from southern Canada through northern Mexico.

Those filing the suit were the Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, the Center for Native Ecosystems, and Rocky Mountain Animal Defense.

In 1998, conservation groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list black-tailed prairie dogs as a threatened species, a listing the service found warranted but precluded because other species had higher priority.

Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Journal - Reprinted with permission