Prairie dog editorial from Rapid City Journal

[rancher]

SH,
In Kansas we've had success by fencing a big dog town and letting the coyotes do the rest. Also we put up some tall hawk stands. But we have taller grass and less dog propagation than SD. Do these tricks not work in SD? Also some guys shoot dogs, is this not complete enough control? or do you have more dogs than shooters?

Brad how do you fence a dog town? And yes out here there you can THIN a dog town with shooting, but more move in from areas that people don't work on control. You can poison a dog town and be 90 % on and by the next year it is full. It is a constant battle with the little rats, esp. during the drough. Plague is the way to go, :lol: .

 

[Mike]

SH,
In Kansas we've had success by fencing a big dog town and letting the coyotes do the rest. Also we put up some tall hawk stands. But we have taller grass and less dog propagation than SD. Do these tricks not work in SD? Also some guys shoot dogs, is this not complete enough control? or do you have more dogs than shooters?

Brad how do you fence a dog town? And yes out here there you can THIN a dog town with shooting, but more move in from areas that people don't work on control. You can poison a dog town and be 90 % on and by the next year it is full. It is a constant battle with the little rats, esp. during the drough. Plague is the way to go, :lol: .

Rancher, I think he means fencing the coyotes in with the "little rats" so that all they have to eat are those "little rats". Might be hard to fence a coyote too, but possible.

 

[rancher]

Mike, it must be a small town of dogs, you guys need to come out and see what a dog town looks like. You would have to put the fence for the coyote in the ground a ways, so he doesn't dig out . Reminds me of the school kids that write agri-news and wants the Yellowstone Park fenced to keep the wolves in :???: . If you can come up with a fence for prairie dogs let me know and I will invest in the company, might be better than my coffee futures. Well have 2 heifers calving and I am off to work again, have a good day.

 

[Mike]

Mike, it must be a small town of dogs, you guys need to come out and see what a dog town looks like. You would have to put the fence for the coyote in the ground a ways, so he doesn't dig out . Reminds me of the school kids that write agri-news and wants the Yellowstone Park fenced to keep the wolves in :???: . If you can come up with a fence for prairie dogs let me know and I will invest in the company, might be better than my coffee futures. Well have 2 heifers calving and I am off to work again, have a good day.

Rancher, Yea I've seen some pretty good sized towns in SD. That kind of fencing would not be cheap. Whenever you need some help in "exterminating" some dogs, let me know. I LOVE IT!

 

[Jason]

SH,
In Kansas we've had success by fencing a big dog town and letting the coyotes do the rest. Also we put up some tall hawk stands. But we have taller grass and less dog propagation than SD. Do these tricks not work in SD? Also some guys shoot dogs, is this not complete enough control? or do you have more dogs than shooters?

Brad if you've been following this thread, the ones with the biggest problem with the little dogs, shoot the wild dogs that eat them. Nature out of balance at its best.

On the big acreages some of these guys run, shooting is a full time occupation.

I agree with the hawk stands, they do work. However our red tailed hawks tend to winter in Nebraska and I have talked with some down there that shoot them because they say there are too many.

Some people think if it moves shoot it.

 

[Jinglebob]

JB,

JB: If a GF&P officals took the time to come to my ranch and visit with me about my problems, than I would certainly have a better opinion of the outfit he worked for.

Have you called your present CO and invited him out? That might go a little way towards answering some questions you might have.

JB- Yes I have called and he is very hard to get ahold of. They must keep him very busy. I guess it's time to try calling him again. I didn't understand why he wasn't at the lockout meeting, other than the fact that he probably figuered that he would have to defend all of the GF&P and it might be a waste of time. I think it would have been interesting if he had been there to answer some questions. Of course I think GF&P has already answerede any questions as to the lockout and are probably tired of arguing about it.

TXTibbs-"What about the recent Cougar problems in the Black Hills? JB i bet if one of them cougars packed off your toy poodle from under your door step you'd call someone and complain....and have the cougar taken care of. That just happened to a lady out there.....lol...i laughed histerically reading the article. The lady described how the cougar crept in and snatched her poor poor little Jack Russel right from between her legs and then slowly walked off with the twitching dog in its mouth! ha ha. Call me cold hearted, but I find that funny....especially when the lady was one of those that prolly wouldn't even swat a fly. And yet they (the SDGF&P) don't see fit to open a season in the Hills. Crap Wyoming has one, why can't South Dakota bite the bullet and open one! They need to. I'd love to track down a lion with a pack of hounds and tree him up."

JB- Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor down south there TX. I would not have a damn poodle on the place. If a cat wants to try and pack off one of my dogs, more power to it. Any self respecting cow dog that can't run off cat or at least get away from one, has no business on this place. :shock: :lol: :wink:
We have had cats come thru' and so far they haven't bothered me anymore than when I tried to pen horses where the cat had traveled. Horses don't seem to like cougar for some reason! Had several neighbors who had a colt killed and a couple of older horses cut and scratched by cats, that was confirmed by the proper authorities. I think they may have even tried to get the cat but I don't think they did. Haven't heard anything about any cats for awhile. Hmmmmm. Of course the deer are real thinck so i suppose the cats are living on deer.
And they are proposing a cougar season, but doesn't sound like it will get much accomplished other than letting some guys shoot at a cat if they happen to see one as they are not going to allow the use of dogs. Anyone can buy a license and they will quit the hunt after the first 20 are tagged. Probably sell a lot of tags at $10 resident and $50 non-resident. I believe the season would be only in the Black Hills.

rancher;
As far as a fence for a praire dog problem, I'm not sure I understand it either. But years ago, SH told me that the best way to controll coyotes who kill sheep is to have a good tight net fence and when you have a problem with a killer coyote, you just look at the perimeter of the fence. You will find where a coyote has dug under the wire. You set a snare or trap at the hole and presto, you've got the problem coyote. I've never had any problems with coyotes or fox or really any wild animal other than praire dogs. Maybe a skunk or two who came thru' the yard and sprayed a nosey dog or acted sick, so I shot the skunk. Skunks and fox and coyote seem to eat a lot of rodents. Same with snakes. But I don't care to share my front yard with them! Well.....maybe a bullsnake.
Any praire dogs that come onto the property, we shoot at and set traps at the holes and eventually we get them cleaned out. I would allow a few praire dogs, but they over populate so fast. I've been told a good way to get rid of them is to find a cat with a bad case of distemper and tie him out in the middle of a dog town. The dogs get curious and come up and get infected and spread the distemper throughout the whole town. Don't know if this is true and it seems kind'a cruel to the cat, but it might work.
I enjoy wildlife and tend to leave them pretty much alone untill a problem arises. I shot a deer last year for the first time in many years as my youngest son wanted to go hunting. I got a double tag and screwed around and only filled one. Do you suppose the GF&P owes me another deer? :lol:
According to some, if there is lots of vegetation in a dog town, the predators have a better chance of getting the dogs, but any dog towns I've seen, there is a definate lack of ground cover! :lol: Guess we should plant crops where the dog towns are!

 

[rancher]

Jason wrote "Brad if you've been following this thread, the ones with the biggest problem with the little dogs, shoot the wild dogs that eat them. Nature out of balance at its best. "

Yes to a degree, it would take lots of coyotes to thin the prairie dogs in this area. The badgers sure help on the dogs.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Sorry, but I haven't been intentionally ignoring you guys. Our server, Consolidated out of Dickinson, ND, will no longer let us bring up ranchers.net on our computers. Not only can we not bring up ranchers.net, we can't access cattletoday.com or tonydean.com, not that his site is any great loss!

LB: "USFS is as arrogant and disconnected from the land and landowners as the SD GF&P."

SH: "How can you say you are not biased when you support a statement that claims that GF&P, which does not differentiate between anyone in GF&P, is disconnected from the land and landowners?"

My slam, and it WAS a slam, was aimed directly at your boss, Mr. John Cooper, who, if I'm not mistaken, was imported from California or some other Third World community. He not only has no connection to the land, he is diametrically opposed to private ownership of land, preferring to have as many acres turned into public land as he can get. I have a BIG problem with government owning ANY land for anything besides the reasons set forth in the United States Constitution. And why is it that no South Dakotan seems to be qualified to fill Cooper's job anyway?

SH: "I grew up on a ranch, I am passionate about ranching and all it entails, I remain involved in ranching, and I was involved in controlling the pr. dogs on Side's property.

Well, good for you. I can say all the same things, except that the prairie dogs I've worked to control were not on Side's property.

SH: "Knowing that, how can GF&P be disconnected from the land and landowners?"

Are you the body and soul of GF&P? Do you make decisions for them, or do they tell you what to do? Although there are some GF&P personnel that were rural raised and understand the issues involved in trying to make a living from the land, there are a whole lot of them who view landowners AND hunters as problems to be dealt with, not unlike troublesome beaver or skunks.

SH: "That statement is bullsh*t and you are a fool to defend it."

Are you trying to be nasty here, or does it just come naturally for you?

I'll sign off now. Until Macon and our internet server can make connections, I'll probably be a long time answering any new posts, but I promise I'll be back on as soon as possible. I know it will be hard getting along without me, but that's life.

 

[Brad S]

When I was a kid, we had a pasture (from some contorted family relationship) down by Cimaron. the pasture was several sections, but it had a dogtown that was mostly on a half section of poor grass. So my Grampa and I spent a good week building an electric fence around the perimeter of the dogtown in the early spring before grass greenup. The fence prohibited cows from grazing the dogtown area, and by the middle of the summer, the grass was 10 or 12 inches high. I don't remember any depletion of dogs that summer, but the next spring they were scarce. We kept the area fenced for 3 seasons, and the grass got bigger and the dogs got scarcer. We put up hawk roosts, as my grampa explained, "to pickoff newcomers."

 

[Jinglebob]

Brad
Interesting account. maybe more folks should try that. How far back did you have to go away from the holes, so as to stop migration as the young ones moved out?

My dad was born on this ranch in 1914 and always found it interesting that dogs would move back onto the land, wherever there used to be dogs. In one instance, they were killed off in the 30's and came back to the exact spot, in the 1980's. I wonder if they dig down and find old holes or what.

A friend bought a ranch 10 or 15 years ago, that had alot of dog towns on the flats, above Sulphur creek. Sulphur runs a lot of water when it rains, so the dogs were above the high water mark. My friend farmed up the dog town and they are gone. I wonder if he plants it back to grass if they would come back?

 

[mrj]

We drove down hiway 44 through the prairie dog devestation last Thursday. While I was so tired I had difficulty staying awake, I could see the absolutely barren ground, drifts of dirt that had blown, and lots of prairie dogs. They really should have been named properly: Prairie Rats, as they ARE rodents, aren't they? I believe we were not even in the worst of it. Also believe cattle have not been allowed in some of the area for many years, even predating the drought. Tall grass sure doesn't deter them from moving into an area, in our experience.

That clearly is a problem made worse by enviroextremists who inflated the numbers "originally" existing to promote larger areas of land they could control to grow the numbers, IMO, and supported by research.

I think prairie dogs should be CONSIDERED for protection sometime AFTER the common household rat is protected and homeowners in the cities are forced to provide food and housing for them in their own homes!

BTW, we don't eliminate coyotes (nor do we have much problem with them), we have lots of hawks, and we still have prairie dogs trying to move onto our land, which generally has at least half the cover left on it. Maybe less during severe drought.

MRJ