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yelenick

prairie dog negotiation

yelenick
18 years ago

hey all! hope you're well! it a chilly 0 deg. F. here in Colorado. Burrrr****

My question/problem.

The acreage we inhabit just outside of denver has a large and expanding prairie dog population. The population's fecundity certainly points to healthy soil, but the dogs are ruining the prairie plant life and, therefore, the lands inherant ability to curtail erosion. We are attempting to retain this plant life to stop erosion and to begin soil rehabilitation. We wouldn't mind trading the prairie dog signifier for a verdant landscape, not to confuse the sign for that which is signified.

The soil has a VERY good mineral content but very poor in organic content. So, we are attempting to establish long term cover crops to move in this direction.

This last november we cover cropped with a mix of white dutch clover and a prairie grass mix by the seed pelleting method suggested by M. Fukuyoka.

Our concern is that the dogs will eat up our succulent efforts in the spring, just as they have the mature grasses, and concatenate the land's atrophy. Talking to the local agricultural milieu, prairie dogs are handled with poison or bazooka joe bubble gum, of which the dogs chew and can't swallow because it gets caught in their teeth. They choke to death. These solutions are obviously unsupply blunt and blind force of which holds no appreciation for the extant and complex ecology the prairie dogs are a part of. What can the dogs do for us? Well, their homes arate and decompress the soil and their manure is beneficial to the local flora. They're good companions as well.

Any suggestions to stop these voracious animals?

All we can think of is eating them. seriously. We think we are going to begin trapping them, killing them and transforming them into a commodified use value, food and hides. Sorry if that sound calous. Not as if their very being doesn't have use value.

We are also wondering if we begin the establishment of trees, if the dogs will have a go at their roots, supplanting or killing the trees. We will begin the orchard in spring and would like to avoid any future "problems" with the roots getting eaten (the problem is the solution).

thanks for the help.

WITHOUT DEAD TIME!

WITHOUT RESTRAINT!

WITHOUT CLASS SOCIETY!

Comments (5)

  • Belgianpup
    18 years ago

    I'm not trying to be nasty, but you seem to be a bit short-sighted, considering what you are attempting to accomplish. You really should look at the bigger picture, beyond what you're planting.

    "... the dogs are ruining the prairie plant life and, therefore, the lands inherant ability to curtail erosion." I really don't think this is true. The dogs were here long before the white man, and the prairie was a large, beautiful, fertile land... one long-gone writer said "you could almost feel it's heartbeat".

    By 1960, over 90% of the prairie dogs had been exterminated, so ranchers could overgraze and overtrample the prairie with their herds of cattle with fewer chances of broken legs and lost profits. Have you heard that since 1960 the prairies became more stable and fertile because of the loss of the prairie dogs? No, you haven't.

    They are PART of the prairie, part of the big picture. They feed the predators and eat both the desirable and undesirable plants and even some bugs. They eat the seeds of the very plants you're planting, and the seeds go through their digestive tracts, helping them to prepare for germination, then the seeds are pooped out, softened and deposited with some moisture and fertilizer, Nature's way of continuing the plant species.

    In Texas, some years ago, they poisoned the dogs out of existence. And the land virtually died and turned to desert. The occasional torrential rains no longer had any place to go but sheeting over the land, causing incredible erosion. The dog burrows were gone... the burrows that caught the water and held it, keeping the grass green longer into summer, and helped to refill the underground aquifers.

    Sure, the dogs eat the grasses and some of the flowering plants. They always have. And the land not only survived, but bloomed and stayed healthy. It was the coming of the white man that so damaged the prairies.

    I think you need to do more research on this. You might want to start here:

    http://www.gprc.org/Keystone_species.html

    And I would like to offer my commendation on what you are doing. Most people see the prairie and visualize how much money they can make from it. It is people like you who will save the land, and all who live on it. Just remember that the land isn't here just for Man. We have to share it, okay?

    Sue

  • Ronin49
    18 years ago

    As Sue points out, prairie dogs and the like are a fundamental part of a temperate plains ecology and perform essential functions. I do not know what creatures fill this niche on the Eurasian steppes but everywhere else I have been it is filled by some burrowing rodent or the like. [And you get these types of foraging 'pest' species everywhere. In my area, like much of Eastern North America, it is rabbits and deer, browsers that are well-suited to keeping verdant foliage in check. Different problems = different natural solutions.]
    In Central and Western Canada it is ground squirrels that perform the same vital functions that Sue refers to (called prairie dogs there too but a much smaller species, though equally prolific).
    It's a question of balance. We had similar problems around our horse stables in Alberta. Solution: two highly motivated young sons with bows and arrows. They suppressed the population dramatically in the immediate area but did not upset the overall balance. And became good shots and stalkers in the process, responsible with a bow and later, firearms; those can be useful skills in some realities.

    For the orchard I would recommend this sort of direct local intervention, coupled with hardware cloth collars above and below ground until the young trees are well established. You will lose some, plant a few extra: you cannot replace the functions that the prairie dogs perform. (Before you eat the dogs, I would check to see what kind of parasites they carry. Some of those species are notable for their disease carrying capabilities.)

    Good luck. I envy you your rich prairie soil and sunlight.

  • bluemoonfarm
    15 years ago

    We have 38 acres on a south-facing mesa outside Paonia, CO. About five of these acres are in prairie dogs. They do make a nice grocery store for the eagles, but they have created a moonscape on this part of our property. If they merely kept the grass clipped low, as I have read on more than one prairie dog website, that would be ok. But nothing grows there--not even weeds. What's worse is that their burrowing activities bring to the surface large amounts of caliche--a calcium carbonate material that is so alkaline that nothing grows in it. We would like to try to restore this part of our property to something like a healthy juniper-pinyon pine woodland with grasses and forbs, but any attempt to seed it and establish woody plants is going to be doomed by these voracious critters. I really think our only hope is to eradicate them, push the caliche material back into the holes, and then try to revegetate. I'd appreciate any suggestions that are realistic and not just based on p.c. dogma.

  • houlesranch_gmail_com
    12 years ago

    Prairie dogs carry diseases such as rabies, fleas and their larvae, They are a danger to horses,dogs,cattle,chickens and other wildlife as well. Everything you plant they will eat or root up, trees included they produce hundreds of babies every summer. In order to get rid of these pests we feed them bubble gum and, use our pellet guns and shotguns. The only good thing about them is they feed the eagles.. Yes we are from Colorado

  • Belgianpup
    12 years ago

    I suspect that exterminating Mankind from the planet would go farther toward keeping the planet on an even keel. 'Tis a pity these two-legged buzzards are so greedy, short-sighted and self-centered, isn't it?

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