Sylvatic Plague detected in Badlands National Park

[Twister Frost]

Badlands National Park official are encouraging visitors to use common-sense safety precautions around wildlife in the park, following the confirmation of sylvatic plague and tularemia among park prairie dogs.

Sylvatic plague was confirmed on July 1 in a prairie-dog colony in the Sage Creek Wilderness Area in the park. This marks the first time the flea-borne bacterial disease, which can decimate prairie dog populations and pose a threat to endangered black-footed ferrets, has been confirmed in the park itself.

Plague was detected in prairie dogs last year in the Conata Basin south of the park. The disease is rarely transmitted to humans, but parks officials still advise visitors to avoid handling sick or dead animals in the park and apply insect repellant to clothing and skin to avoid bites from fleas. They also advise people to see a doctor if they believed they had been exposed.

Pets should also be carefully controlled in areas where plague is present, to prevent them from wandering into prairie dog colonies and where they might come in contact with fleas.

Last year, natural resources officials applied insecticide to 11,000 acres of targeted prairie dog colonies in the Conata Basin-badlands ecosystem to reduce the flea population and fight the spread of the disease. Sylvatic plague was first confirmed in South Dakota in 2004, but it had previously decimated prairie dog colonies in other states.

Wildlife specialists also have detected tularemia in a prairie dog colony in the badlands. The tick-borne disease is extremely rare in humans. Again, officials advise visitors to take common-sense precautions, including sick and dead animals and using insect repellant.
(http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2009/07/07/news/top/doc4a53c92aed7b7743506100.txt)

[brushpopper]

Now thats just good news and bad news, good news that there's a disease that can wipe out prairie dogs, bad news that the officials are trying to get rid of the disease!!!!

[Oldtimer]

[Twister Frost]

[kolanuraven]

[Twister Frost]

I can think of two reasons: 1) I have seen the destruction a ferret caused in the chicken coop when I was younger; 2) If the ferret's principal food is prairie dog it would appear we would need to keep the pd around for the ferret's survival. I just happen to think that neither are worth my conservation dollar! Poison works just as well on a pd--just stupid regulations as to when you can poison them.

[brushpopper]

It would take many, many ferrets to even come close to eating up a town of pdogs then we would be spending alot time and money trying to get rid of the ferrets!!!!!