I had to read about that vacuum back in High School. It was an interesting story.

This is another example of ignorant government officials making decisions on something that they have no knowledge of. Are these the same people that are worried about lead poisoning from our bullets in scavengers. Sounds a little ironic to me.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. Poisons seem to have their place - when you have a specific local problem and when you have to annihilate everything in an area to achieve a goal (Asian carp, for instance). Should be a last resort.

And prairie dogs? They're either thrill seekers or suicidal. They just seem to dare each other to run across a road whenever a car or truck goes by. Population control by tire is pretty efficient but the roads aren't always in the right place. Shoots still seem the most effective means.

Just the more reason not to have Department of Agriculture in control, to political!

I believe that hunting the prairie dogs are a good way for the hunter to gain access to other hunting oportunities (after hunting prairie dogs on a ranchers property for a year he is likely to let you hunt other animals).

Poison is a non discriminating way to kill the pests, I think all the other animals that die due to the poison should be dropped off on the White House lawn.

Gman, Saddly prairie dogs are protected on teh military bases where I live, but you can shoot all the coyotes from the towns you want.

you know here in Nebraska there are some parts that are hit pretty bad by dogs and my dad and I along with two of my uncles go and a dog hunt every year but this sort of thing will make the problem way worse

When there is an actual solution to manage prairie dogs that works good enough and doesn't cost a fortune to do it, then maybe you can talk about not poisoning praire dogs anymore. The problem is there is nothing that works very good other than poisoning them, and it is becoming harder to do that with them banning more and more poisons. If you want to help maybe you should all donate to a fund for ranchers whose land is taken over and rent that ground from them for the dog town. I would say it would be fair for them to charge you for the amount of every cow calf pair that can't be on that ground because the dogs ruined the grazing.
Hunting prairie dogs is great, but it is very inefficient. You might get a few but there is always more. I know this as we have too many of these varmin on our ground and I have never turned down a prairie dog hunter who has come and asked to hunt them.
Bella to answer your question if you can choke down a prairie dog you would be a heck of a lot tougher than me. They are some of the germiest stickiest animals around. For the record I have never seen even one ferret in our dogtowns, seen lots of coyotes, and badgers however.
Two years ago the black plague killed out most dogtowns around here to hardly any prairie dogs left. Two years later there are just as many if not more now. This is how fast these critters can multiply. If you live somewhere that has none of these your opinion does not mean much. You should come and see them for yourself, and see the amount of erosion they cause. They are hard on the ground. About five years ago I lost a $5500 Bull to a broken leg from a prairie dog hole. I got one good season of breeding out of him before he turned into hamburger. That was an expensive investment because of the stinking prairie dogs. I think maybe people need to figure out both sides before they jump the gun and start slamming something like prairie dog managment. I think the blog authors could have arguments from both sides also.
One more thing to think on also, if you want to hunt prairie dogs, I would suggest not voicing an opinion against poisoning, exspecially to the landowners. They might not let you hunt, and you might be helping out the same people who are trying to make hunting a thing of the past. In fact, in my neck of the woods I can guarentee that they wouldn't let you hunt them if you said anything against poisoning prairie dogs.

"Poison doesn’t discriminate, doesn't stop for lunch, doesn't miss, doesn't get tired and doesn't call it a day when the sun goes down. It simply kills every damn thing that crosses its path."

You callin' me poison?

Logan, was the dog hole where your bull broke a leg on land you own or on public grazing land? I sympathize with your financial loss on the bull, but poison is pollution and pollution is poison. How can distributing a persistant, nondiscriminating pollutant poison possibly do less harm than the dog towns do. You may not give a dang about anything but your cattle and your profit margin, but that is extremely short sighted. The land you use will be there long after you are but a memory. Do you want people praising your memory or cursing it. Or are you unconcerned about whatever mess you leave behind you?

It's a wonder that PETA hasn't had a fit about this issue.

Black plague sounds like the answer to me, is it species specific? So 2 ideas breed black footed ferrets and release them or drop black plague down dog holes.
Someone tell me why that won't work.

Thanks joshd. Just one more simple answer shot to h@ll.
The ferret idea was just to get more endangered species back in the system. It seemed to work with the California Condors, and more impressively with the wild turkey.

Nothing beats Hornady's 22 Hornet 34gr. varmint express or Remington UMC .223 45 gr HP loads for prairie dog control. I can only hope this EPA approved pestilence will knock out a large portion of the feral cat population as well.

Bella
The dogtowns are on our own private ground. I don't use any public grazing. I think you should visit this area before you act like farmers and ranchers are ruining it. We manage the land to get more grass and less erosion. That is the opposite of what prairie dogs do. I want this land to be the best it can be for the future of my children. I am not worried about just myself. I take care of the land I own and operate. People who live here know whats best, and not someone from the east coast. I think we are smart enough to take care of our state and the Feds and everyone else who doesn't live here can stay out of it. I think you need a better look of what the dogtowns are like before you form an opinion. Not an opinion based on reading and from the internet. I don't want to tell your state what kind of wildlife management you should have beings I don't live there and don't know what problems you may or may not have. There's no room for someone in a suit that has never been here and seen what life is like to go and start regulating everything people do. Don't give me that liberal guilt trip accusing me of not caring about the future. I care more than most because I want my children and their children to be able to live and ranch here too. If there is too many regulations pretty soon no one will be able to afford to live and ranch here. I can't even take care of prairie dog overpopulation anymore for fear I'll break some law and pay ridiculous fines or go to jail. It is getting to the point where I just let them be because of crap like this. Don't beleive everything the EPA says. They also wanted to have a fart tax on cattle because they are ruining the world.
Paul Wilke
Black plague is harder on all animals and wildlife than anyone poisoning prairie dogs. That is a terrible idea. Not to mention the dogtowns are basically in our backyard and we have children and pets that play out there. A couple of years ago when the plague was going around, the State parks were putting licing powder around dogtowns to help keep them from getting the plague. That was tax dollars wasted because where this didn't occur on private ground the dogtowns are just as big as ever and took hardly any ti

I suppose they would breed like rats...Logan if it is your land you gotta do what you gotta do. Just if you feed poison to prairie dogs you are feeding it to hawks, foxes and a dozen other critters too. You can't smoke bomb them out and shoot 'em as they exit the hole? How about flooding the dog holes with a fire hose, wouldn't that work? That warfarin based poison is awful stuff, it may be "cheaper" but the hidden costs of using such death pellets make them expensive in the long run. I understand they are a hazard for you and cause you economic loss, but if your water got contaminated the issues that would ensue could be far more painful.
It is just too bad ferreting isn't allowed, even domestic ferrets (the kind sold as pets) would do the job (but they would never be "pets" again, but "professional prairie dog evictors"! Now there is business model for some entrepreneur! But there is probably some law agin it...

Come to think Dachshunds were bred to go down holes after rabbits and other critters, I betcha Dachshunds would clear out p-dog holes pretty quick, especially if you use 4 or 5 of the little long dogs. Dachshunds are one of those breeds that were bred for hunting of a sort nobody does anymore, so the breed exists in a sort of embarrassment, having devolved from a dog with a job to an anklebiter. I used to work for a vet and I can testify that Dachshunds can have a fighting spirit! Got bit by one more'n once!
As far as using Dachshunds as tunnel rat dogs, I think you'd hardly need to train 'em. You might want to figure out some way to color your dog so you can tell it from the P-dogs when they come boilin' outa the holes (and not shoot it by accident). This almost sounds fun to watch...
I suspect the Dachshund dogs would be downright eager to get the job of flushing Prairie Dogs out of the burrows and I don't think there would be anywhere in the tunnel where a Pdog might go where a Dachshund couldn't follow, being built the way they are. Anybody have a couple Dachshunds and some problem Pdogs? Sounds like another fine business opportunity for somebody!

Bella
Your ideas are not new and have been tried. I don't think you realize that you would have to have shotguns to shoot them when they can out of the holes. I probably have at minimum one million prairie dogs. If you want to come and donate the money for me to get the ammunition for my 12ga. I will glady have fun shooting them with dogs going into the holes. Your looking at around $320,000 for shells around here if you don't reload. Thats more than I make in four years. Is this an economical idea? No. I have to consider the time lost as much as the cost. I loose time working and something doesn't get done.
The water around here will never be contaminated by a few poison pellets. You may argue with me on this but I know better. Thats a scare tactic by liberals who act like we flood our ground with poison. People who poison prairie dogs barely use any for the amount of ground that is covered by prairie dogs. Something you would know if you lived here. There is too much water and too little poison to do enough to even notice. I dare someone to test the ground on someones dog town who poisons them and see if they can even find a trace amount of poison. More pollution goes out oiling your roads than when someone poisons prairie dogs. You don't have much of a comprehension of what prairie dogs are like. Their holes are on hundreds of acres per town depending on size of the dog town, with each hole attached and only a few feet from another.
We are not ignorant people, we have been here long enough to know what is what, and tried other ways.
Ferrets would not take care of the problem. Noone would pay to have someone shoot every one with dashunds going into the holes to flush them out, when it would cost too much. The poison doesn't affect much other wildlife, I know this because we have plenty of all the critters that feast on Prairie dogs with exceptions to ferrets. Badgers and coyotes are their main predators, and we have too many of both.

sounds like some great ideas, but unrealistic. p-dog burrows are probably about 4-5 inches in diameter, dogs won't be able to chase them out, nor will any other animal for that matter. this issue has been around for a long long time, and poison is the only effective means of p-dog control. so i think teh point of this posting is that Rozol is a bad idea. other poisons can be just as, if not more, effective, without the secondary effect of killing every other critter that comes in contact with it (Rozol can persist after it rains).

If prairie dogs are really any serious contender against your ranch then it just wasn't meant to be. You may think prairie dogs need "control," but actually they're absent over the vast majority of their native range, because people have killed them, one way or another. And the entire ecosystem depends on them as the base of the food chain. Do they taste good? Yes, to ferruginous hawks, kit foxes, and others, but when they have lead in them (particularly from the bullets that "mist" them), it kills the hawks and foxes as well. So poisoning or shooting is not the question. How can my cattle coexist without requiring the extermination of the natives is the question. Some ranchers in Wyoming have done a great job of learning to coexist with wolves by using llamas. Who has a good idea for coexisting with prairie dogs? That person is the rancher of the future.