HeyHeyHey,
 
Was reading the daily paper here.  The Daily News, Jacksonville, NC on
October 9, 2004 and on the last page of the first section (a) ran across
a very disturbing story.  I tried to pull it up and get a link but
couldn't seem to get it.
 
The upshot of the story is this.
 
Ranchers are complaining that prairie dogs are invading their land and
ranches again.  The National govt gave them permission to poison the
pd's.  8 conservation groups sued the govt to stop the poisoning because
it is in black footed ferret territory and there is concern that the
ferrets will be killed also by eating the poisoned pd's.
 
The land in question covers some "8,000 acres in the Buffalo Gap National
Grasslands, including the Conata Basin where more than half of the
nations black footed ferrets live."
 
A compromise, ordered by a judge, was made that only 5,000 acres were to
be poisoned with laced oats.  The land not to be poisoned is pd towns
where black footed ferrets have been spotted but it also reduces the
buffer zone from 1 mile to 1/2 a mile in some areas.  The contaminated
oats are to be spread Monday.  "In the future the federal government also
agreed to consider non lethal methods of controlling pds and to study the
impact of poisoning before moving ahead with another round." Yeah, lets
study it after we kill everything off.
 
The government says it HAS to proceed with this round as neighboring
land has already been poisoned and they are afraid of an influx of pds
into this area.
 
This just so totally sucks.
 
Karen
[Posted in FML issue 4661]