Ranchers and New Bank Help Prairie Dogs Find a Home on the Range
Posted: 03-Jan-2006; Updated: 18-Oct-2007
After 22 years of protection, the federally threatened Utah prairie dog has new opportunities for recovery. The best remaining habitat is on private land. (Credit: Copyright Kristi DuBois)
In the landowner-wildlife conflict arena, prairie dogs have a front seat. So it's especially welcome news that two ranchers have volunteered to aid the rarest of the four U.S. prairie dog species. Earlier this year, Allen Henrie and Mitchel Pace signed Safe Harbor Agreements, under which they volunteered to manage part of their land to benefit the Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens). Yet more good news comes from a state agency: In September, the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration launched a conservation bank to benefit the federally threatened mammal.
To many western ranchers and farmers, prairie dogs are no more than destructive pests that gobble up valuable livestock forage and damage costly haying equipment. On the contrary, say conservationists, prairie dogs are essential to Great Plains and western grasslands landscapes. As keystone species, they feed many birds and mammals, shape the vegetation by continuously pruning it and provide shelter and housing for myriad animal species in the extensive burrows of prairie dog "towns." Moreover, scientists consider prairie dogs an ecosystem process because they influence plant succession, water infiltration and mineral cycling.
Prairie dogs' plummet from their historical numbers is less controversial. After decades of poisoning, shooting, habitat loss and disease, only a fraction of once vast prairie dog towns remains. The Utah prairie dog, known only from the southwestern quarter of the state, has been on the federal endangered and threatened species list since 1973. Conservation efforts to date have aimed at relocating Utah prairie dogs from private lands to public lands, and the outcome has been mixed at best, with little progress toward recovery. Numbers have fluctuated, but the population remains below 10,000 and may be as low as 5,000.
Securing landowner help for prairie dog recovery
With the best remaining habitat on private lands and the potential for improving degraded ranchland for cattle as well as prairie dogs, in 1998 Environmental Defense began exploring ways to involve landowners in Utah prairie dog recovery. Recognizing that many ranchers lack the money to improve their land, the organization helped secure funds for rangeland restoration.
Allen Henrie will be restoring habitat for prairie dogs on about a fifth of his 900-acre Garfield County ranch. He will restore rangeland by thinning invading rabbit brush that discourages prairie dogs, which need open habitat for predator surveillance. Henrie will also plant native grasses and other herbaceous plants that feed both prairie dogs and cattle and construct additional fencing to exclude cattle while the land is being re-vegetated. He will also implement a prescribed grazing plan to maintain the restored vegetation and encourage a reintroduced prairie dog colony. The Leopold Stewardship Fund, which is administered by the Sand County Foundation and Environmental Defense, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Private Stewardship Grants Program are funding this work.
Rancher Allen Henrie (left) volunteered to help the Utah prairie dog by restoring habitat on a portion of his land. It’s the first Safe Harbor Agreement for the species and a model for other Utah prairie dog conservation projects. Environmental Defense ecologist Ted Toombs (right) assisted Henrie with the process. (Credit: Environmental Defense)
After the land is restored, the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources will reintroduce Utah prairie dogs at no expense to Henrie. "This is a win-win situation," he says. "I win by getting rangeland improved and hopefully the prairie dog wins by gaining new habitat."
On his Sevier County ranch, Mitchel Pace will thin overgrown brush, re-seed grasses and other native plants, and employ mechanical and herbicidal treatments to improve forage and predator surveillance habitat for prairie dogs. He will also manage his grazing operations to reduce forage impacts and promote vegetative recovery by better distributing his cattle. USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program and FWS's Partners for Fish and Wildlife are providing funding for restoration work on the Pace ranch.
These habitat enhancements will likely be continued by the prairie dogs themselves, as they move in from an active five-acre colony that abuts Pace's land. In his Safe Harbor Agreement, Pace consented to allow expansion of that colony even if the animals eventually occupy his entire 22 acres. "Under the right circumstances," he says, "cattle and prairie dogs can coexist."
As with all Safe Harbor Agreements, the two new Safe Harbors provide legal assurances to the landowners that they will not incur new Endangered Species Act restrictions as a result of their habitat improvements and the reintroduction of prairie dogs on their property.
Bank expected to benefit state, prairie dogs and cities
The Utah prairie dog conservation bank was finalized in September 2005, five years after Environmental Defense began work on the project. This agreement between Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration and the FWS aims to increase habitat for the federally threatened prairie dog while adding flexibility to Endangered Species Act restrictions in rapidly growing Utah communities. SITLA is an independent agency which manages 3.4 million acres of trust land for the benefit of state schools and other public institutions.
Under the agreement, SITLA will enhance and restore Utah prairie dog habitat at three sites totaling about 800 acres on land it owns in the Parker Mountain area of south-central Utah. The bank put these sites under perpetual conservation easements and established a perpetual endowment fund to maintain them as Utah prairie dog habitat.
In return for its beneficial management, SITLA earns credits that it can either use for its own projects or sell to developers in growing communities such as Cedar City, where construction is affected by Endangered Species Act restrictions for Utah prairie dogs. Because of surrounding development, these sites usually offer only marginal habitat where prairie dog populations are unlikely to persist over the long term unlike SITLA's Parker Mountain property.
Based on Utah prairie dog counts at the SITLA sites, the bank opened with 77 credits. Rapidly expanding Iron County immediately purchased all the credits and intends to resell them to developers. The price was $1,636 each, plus $200 per credit for the perpetual endowment fund, a price determined by a third party that appraised the sites.
The sale gives SITLA needed income for schools and other public institutions. As habitat enhancement earns more bank credits, SITLA can sell those credits or use them to mitigate its own development projects. SITLA also has the option of expanding the bank to generate still more credits. Iron County Commissioner Dennis Stowell says, "This bank is good news for development in Iron County."
Developing a "culture of recovery"
Center for Conservation Incentives ecologist Ted Toombs thinks it's good news for prairie dogs as well: "With time," he says, "we hope to develop a ‘culture of recovery,' where landowners, state and federal agencies, and non-profit and agricultural organizations are all working toward the same goal: recovering and delisting the Utah prairie dog. These projects are the first step in showing that this can happen in a way that's in everyone's best interest."
Toombs, who works in Environmental Defense's Boulder office, brought the two Safe Harbors to the finish line after the multi-year effort was begun by other Environmental Defense staff. He believes it was worth the wait: "These projects and the conservation bank are models that demonstrate what can be done to help the species. If more people begin to do these things, we can move the Utah prairie dog significantly closer to recovery within five years."
-Margaret McMillan
endangered species specialist
Center for Conservation Incentives
Environmental Defense
Editor's note: The Utah prairie dog is one of the species featured in Environmental Defense's Back from the Brink campaign. For more information, visit www.backfromthebrink.org
