If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em—that’s my advice for City Councilor Ronald Trujillo.
It’s a damn good thing City Councilor Ronald Trujillo has taken a proposed ordinance to ban the feeding of prairie dogs and stuffed it down a mysterious hole in a city park. It makes no sense to legislate such a thingas numerous critics have pointed outbut that doesn’t mean Trujillo’s sentiment was wrong.
Even if Trujillo’s only motivation in proposing the ordinance was the silly dream that children (and adults) might be able to play ball in our parks without snapping their ankles in prairie dog holes, his suggestion that people ought to stop feeding the critters is wholly in line with the best environmental practices of the day. By raising the issue, Trujillo has demonstrated the deeply hypocritical practices and flawed logic of many of Santa Fe’s prairie dog defenders.
The Gunnison’s Prairie Dog, so the argument goes, is a keystone species in the “sagebrush ecosystem”a critical link in a chain of species that allows the high desert in New Mexico and Arizona to thrive, or at least maintain balance. Never mind that there’s nary a true sagebrush ecosystem within city limits, especially within parksthe gist of the argument is true: The prairie dog is a remarkable and important animal, and is darned cute to boot. Those who argue in favor of its protection are justified in doing so, although those who believe the city’s relocation program is as bad as exterminating the fuzzy rodents are taking it a little too far. It’s better to put the creatures into an ecosystem they can actually “keystone” than it is to let them escape natural predators in our parks, and breed and feed under wholly different conditions.
The feed part is particularly absurd. There’s no doubt that city-dwelling prairie dogs already have augmented their traditional diet of seeds, herbs, roots and grasses with fast-food litter and other appalling human detritus. That’s no reason to intentionally enable a shift in diet and, more critically, a shift in the development of nature’s skill set. It’s no secret that feeding marmots, bears, deer, etc., creates fat animals who become inured to the threat of predators, and who risk failing to develop the skills necessary to survive without relying on the human trough. Usually, in wilderness areas, one gets the distinct sense that the people who cheerily feed the wildlife against regulations and recommendations are the same ones who cover their lawns with poisons and pesticides and happily go nuclear on gophers, squirrels and, yes, the cutest of prairie dogs.
But in Santa Fe we have the worst of confusing situationsit’s the people who probably don’t violate wilderness regulations who think they have a special dispensation to tweak the evolution of prairie dogs because the animals “seem needy.” They would never pocket a fossil or a pottery shard, but they’ve imagined a sacred calling to lend a helping hand to cute critters. Living in close proximity to prairie dogs doesn’t give us the right to insert ourselves into their ecosystem. At a very fundamental level, there’s arguably no difference between feeding a prairie dog and killing a prairie dogyou’re screwing with them either way. That’s a tough concept to wrap around a bleeding heart.
People think: “Oh, but I will feed them every daythey can rely on me.” They believe feeding prairie dogs is “benign” and anthropomorphize rodents into needy humans who exhibit gratitude. But prairie dogs can’t rely on peoplenot on individuals and not on communities.
It’s neither fair nor smart to argue for the preservation of the prairie dog on the grounds of its importance to the ecosystem, and then casually disregard that same ecosystem when it suits the emotional whimsies of people who profess integrity in the matter.
It’s also neither fair nor smart to waste city resources on fining illicit feeders of wildlife, in general, or prairie dogs, in particular. Slapping the cuffs on granny for tossing carrots down a rodent hole is a little more draconian than a wildlife policy needs to be. But if the city is going to put time and energy toward developing a “policy” rather than an ordinanceas Trujillo now suggeststhe results risk being equally ineffective.
Developing a policy usually means a task force or a commission, and that usually means too many people sporadically meeting for too long and getting nothing done. The result tends to be hazy pseudo-policy that ensures all “stakeholders” have their feelings protected rather than useful, educational, implementable strategy for dealing with the initial problem. In other words, we’ll need some uncharacteristically sensible heads at the table who understand the need for consistent behavior.
Protecting animals from humans, as often as not, means protecting them from our kindness as well as our callousness.
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Your logical conclusion is dead on, Zane. There is only one biologist in the world who agrees with feeding prairie dogs, Ana Davidson, but she is a devout animal rights activist and thus her reasoning is skewed.
Tourists come to Santa Fe to see “the wild,” open spaces, not ugly development. Europeans, especially, appreciate visiting native wildlife ecosystems, and know more about the Gunnison’s prairie dog than city councilors do.
Gunnison’s prairie dogs have been here for centuries, and the city has been systematically destroying them for decades.
As the city “celebrates” its “400 years,” alerts are out world-wide exposing its anti-wildlife policy and ecosystem destruction, for potential tourists to see.
The city destroys native flora, so prairie dogs won’t have natural food available. That is why volunteers have to supplement their food supply. Unlike humans, prairie dogs have built-in birth control. They also have language, several dialects, and are probably more literate than most politicians.
Is the city only interested in real estate ($$) development? Doesn’t it know the difference between a soccer/baseball “playground” and a real park or nature preserve? Children need to experience nature, their natural heritage, not just human junk.
The last large prairie dog ecosystem will be destroyed by the city (and state) at College of Santa Fe. And for what? Another parking lot and building! In the late 1990s, CSF poisoned hundreds of prairie dogs. The survivors should remain there.
The CSF prairie dog ecosystem must become a nature preserve. What a “higher education” experience this could be for locals and visitors!
I have been actively studying and working with Gunnison’s prairie dogs for five years, in addition to a higher education in ecology and professional experience. I understand your position, Rosemary, but all science on prairie dogs clearly states that it is wrong.
The regular feeding of wildlife is wrong; this position is supported by the Humane Society, The Sierra Club, National Parks, and even the Audubon Society (except birds). The caring citizens of Santa Fe have not come up with an ecologically acceptable way to feed wildlife, they have just made excuses as to why they think it is OK. It’s not, and here's why:
1. Prairie dogs naturally exist at a density of <10/acre, and you need at the very least 100 prairie dogs to sustain a colony's security and genetic pool. So how many of the remaining prairie dogs in Santa Fe have 10 acres? Leaving them where they are is sentencing them to death.
2. Prairie dogs do not have "built-in birth control", this is an idea spread by prairie dog advocates that has zero scientific foundation. It is built on the fact that UNDER NATURAL CONDITIONS prairie dog populations will "boom and bust" depending on available forage, thereby maintaining a sustainable habitat. Supplemental feeding makes the amount of available forage infinite, which allows the population to constantly grow by increasing the number of pups born (due to the mother's good health despite forage conditions) and increasing the number that survive to adulthood (through reductions in infanticide, starvation, competition, etc). These are fundamental facts of population dynamics, a very well understood principle of ecology. Slobodchikoff (Prairie Dogs, 2009) covers the basics of population dynamics pg. 96-98.
3. As a population increases, it becomes even less able to sustain on native forage and causes expansion, leading to more conflicts w/ humans and more roadkills (see West Alameda, Votech, Sawmill, etc.). Prairie dogs do not need green grass to thrive, the presence of dry native grasses, weeds, forbs, and perhaps most importantly the extensive supply of highly nutritious seeds in the soil (from the grasses and weeds) sustain unmolested prairie dog populations. If it seems like they are “starving” and you see fewer of them, well, that’s the “built in birth control” that reduces a population during times of limited resources.
4. The area around the college of Santa Fe has never maintained more than a couple hundred prairie dogs because it is not ideal habitat. The entire undeveloped area is less than 20 acres, and most of it is in close proximity to four schools, 1 park, apartments, tennis courts, homes, a football field, and two busy roadways. Installing a 4 foot subterranean and above-ground fence along this entire border is impractical, to say nothing of the runoff that inundates much of this area. It would be necessary to reduce the population in this "preserve" every year to avoid an extensive supplemental feeding program. Also, almost all the prairie dogs in the CSF area have already been relocated by People for Native Ecosystems, the largest advocacy group in town.
The solution is for the city/county to utilize the land they already own out of town to develop a real prairie dog preserve with room for the prairie dogs to expand and establish an ecosystem. Any attempt in the city will be like a sad petting zoo with prairie dogs waiting for a handout....like they already are now.
Myth of the Prairie Dog
History:
In the book: The Coronado Expedition 1540-1542 by George Parker Winship, 1896, republished 1964 Rio Grande Press:
Page 238; Chapter 21, of how the army returned to Tiguex and the general reached Quivira.
“It was estimated that during this fortnight they killed 500 bulls. ……The general followed his guides until he reached Quivira, which took forty-eight days’ marching, on account of the great detour they had made toward Florida. They (the native peoples) keep their road this way: In the morning they notice where the sun rises and observe the direction they are going to take, and then shoot an arrow in this direction. Before reaching this they shoot another over it, and in this way they go all day to the water where they are to end the day. In this way they covered in 25 days what had taken them 37 days going, besides stopping to hunt cows on the way.[1]
All over these plains there were large numbers of animals like squirrels and a great number of their holes.”
COMMENTARY: So here the Conquistadors mention the Buffalo for days and days before they actually see their first prairie dogs. So prairie dogs where located hundreds of miles away from Bernalillo, the Conquistadors headquarters and on the plains.
Physiology of the Plains
It is cruel and unusual punishment to allow prairie dogs to live in Santa Fe County. They are creatures of the Great Plains ecosystem and barely survive here in Santa Fe County. They need a soil that can be worked and is not as compacted as our soil is. The average depth of soil is two to three feet under which is a layer of hard caliche, then rock. So that to create a burrow where an animal can survive the freezing temperatures of winter requires and animal to dig through solid caliche and rock and bring it up to the surface which effectively kills the topsoil and makes it sterile reducing the amount of vegetation it can sustain. The prairie dog digs through microscopic root fibers and aerobic bacteria that have existed there for centuries undisturbed; effectively killing the natural break-down of the soil that all native plants need here.[2] This kills the nematodes and worms and all the microscopic creatures necessary to have healthy soil and the very plant life that the prairie dogs need to eat. It is a vicious cycle of destruction---the opposite of the prairie dogs purpose on the Great Plains. Where it breaks down the piles of buffalo dung and mixes older soil with virgin soil, aerates the ground, mixes the grass seed and starts a new generation of green grasses that attract back the buffalo in a couple of years to start the process over again. Living in Plains areas that receive 20 to 30 inches of rainfall a year they are thrust into the Chihuahuan Desert of 14 inches a year.
So behind the Cerrillos Road MacDonald’s where prairie dogs begged for French fries and were sustained for their further punishment in Santa Fe County, they dug burrows and killed the root systems of the native grasses that reach down some 10 to 14 feet for moisture during our droughts. Without native grass, ragweed, tumbleweed, mustard weed and tumbling mustard weed took over the landscape. These are plants with less protein and nutritional value for any animal thus making prairie dogs more sustainable to disease and death. They are also plants which are more prone to brush fires and the release of allergens. Rabbit brush (or turpentine weed) is known to cause abortions in cattle and may have the same affect on prairie dogs. These weeds also have a greater evaporation and evapotranspiration quality when compared to native grass. They also have less beneficial soil nutrients when composted. Removal of native grasses reverses a process of natural succession and allows the invasive species of juniper to spread which also wastes water from evapotranspiration. The problem is that being an evergreen, the juniper can take in water 365 days a year when other trees are dormant some 125 days a year; and the juniper can also lose water to evaporation some 365 days a year as opposed to only 260 for other trees. So the introduction of the non-native and invasive species of prairie dogs has deteriorated and degraded the overall environment. The environmentalists who are trying to save the prairie dog are dooming them to a life of torture and minimal survival. Is this fair?
[1] Casteñeda wrote in his journal: “Who could believe that 1,000 horses and 500 of our cows and more than 5,000 rams and ewes and more than 1,500 friendly Indians and servants, in traveling over these plains, would leave no more trace where they had passed than if nothing had been there---nothing---so it was necessary to make piles of bones and cow dung now and then.” (page 302) The Spaniards as they passed through the grass of the plains folded the grass down as to make a road, but in several hours time the grass recovered and there was no indication they had ever gone that way so that it became possible to become lost on the plains.
[2] The new theory in New Mexico soil management that deep tilling is killing the beneficial organisms and is slowing down water penetration (Dust Bowl type problems).