U.S. Takes Wait-and-See Stance on Prairie Dog

WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration said the black-tailed prairie dog warrants protection as a threatened species but stopped short Thursday of imposing controversial restrictions on developers and ranchers while states work on ways to preserve the rodent.

A pest to many but a beloved critter to others, the prairie dog will be added to a list of candidates for threatened status under the Endangered Species Act, and its status will be reviewed annually.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service said it is dealing with too many other plants and wildlife that are in more danger, such as the lynx and mountain plover, to take on protecting the prairie dog.

“The black-tailed prairie dog is a very resilient species. It’s handled a lot over the years,” said Pete Gober, an agency biologist who led a yearlong study of the prairie dog. “Hopefully we’ll be able to work with those states to avoid the necessity of listing the species.”

Prairie dogs, so named because of their barking, once were found on as many as 100 million acres from Canada to Mexico, but the animal has been decimated by disease, eradication and urban sprawl.

Biologists don’t know how many prairie dogs are left but say their habitat has been reduced to about a million acres.

Arizona, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming have agreed to come up with a plan by next year for monitoring and protecting the animal. Colorado, where the prairie dog is particularly controversial, and North Dakota are considering their own plans.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s annual reviews will look at whether the species should be removed from the candidate list or moved up in priority.

The agency has already proposed several species for listing as endangered or threatened in the region, including the lynx, mountain plover and Colorado butterfly plant. Endangered status means that a species is in danger of extinction; threatened status means it could become endangered.