Managing the ecosystems of Wyoming’s public lands requires balancing the needs of various species with the interests of other stakeholders. The conservation nonprofit Western Watersheds Project has thrown its weight behind the wildlife and is working to protect local species – black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs – from poisoning by ranchers or mismanagement by public lands officials.
Small, furry, round-eared and round-eyed, Wyoming’s black-footed ferrets have a history of difficulties.
“Endangered black-footed ferrets need vast expanses of active prairie dog colonies to survive,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project (WWP) in a release. “We’re in the absurd situation where ferrets are dying in captivity in captive breeding programs for lack of suitably large prairie dog colonies, even on public lands, because the livestock industry doesn’t want to coexist with the native wildlife on the grasslands.”
The black-tailed prairie dog is a Forest Service Sensitive Species on the Thunder Basin National Grassland located in northeastern Wyoming in the Powder River Basin. In 2002 Thunder Basin adopted a plan designating about 50,000 acres to reintroducing the black-footed ferret in a prairie dog habitat. The goal of the plan was for the ferrets to grow out of the status of “endangered” while maintaining protections for prairie dogs so they do not become endangered in the process of ferret reintroduction.
“WWP strongly supports the Black-footed Ferret Reintroduction Habitat (MA 3.63) designation in the Thunder Basin Grassland Land and Resource Management Plan,” wrote Wyoming WWP Director Jonathan Ratner in a letter to Forest Supervisor Russ Bacon. “Furthermore it urges the Forest Service to maximally implement the recovery and expansion of black-tailed prairie dog colonies both inside and outside this zone, with the goal of creating an adequate acreage of contiguous and occupied prairie dog colonies on the Thunder Basin national Grassland to support the reintroduction of the endangered black-footed ferret.”
Prairie dogs protections in the plan also include monitoring the use of zinc phosphide and Rozol, both of which cause slow death by internal bleeding once ingested and are used to control the size of the prairie dog population. The small 2-½ pound mammal is considered a keystone species, which means other animals in the ecosystem depend on it as a food source to survive. If the prairie dog population reaches “endangered levels” by way of poisoning or competition with the ferret population, then many of its predators, like the swift fox and the golden eagle, could become endangered as well.
WWP is keen on stopping ranchers or public land offices, like the one managing Wyoming’s Grassland, from poisoning native wildlife. The group wants black-footed ferrets to live in a healthy and safe environment in Wyoming in order to increase its population while maintaining the prairie dogs’ population levels.
“The High Plains of eastern Wyoming haven’t been an area of heavy focus for the WWP in the past, but this new effort on the part of ranchers to try to increase the poisoning of prairie dogs and impede the reintroduction of black-footed ferrets on the Thunder Basin National Grassland has convinced us that the public lands livestock operations in this area deserve a lot more scrutiny,” Molvar said. “If the National Forest Service is going to authorize livestock grazing on public lands, it needs to balance that private use with the will of the landowners – the American people – who have a strong interest in maintaining diverse and healthy native wildlife. It is completely unacceptable for commercial entities to poison native wildlife on public lands, particularly prairie dogs that are key to the recovery of the highly endangered black-footed ferret.”
WWP, an environmental group founded in 1993, has dedicated itself to protecting and restoring watersheds and wildlife in the western region. The organization has about 1,500 members as well as offices in Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California and Wyoming. For more information see WesternWatersheds.org.
