The Earth is being raped, strangled and left for dead by people who care only about themselves and what they can get in the short term. The suffering of others is inconsequential. Indeed, they pride themselves in their ability to disregard the cries and struggles of their targets, whom they objectify while denying their very sentience. Like psychopathic serial killers, they ignore the rights and welfare of their victims, intentional or incidental.
Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson
Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson
Group explores options to protect wildlife from future development
As protesters stood at Founders Parkway and Factory Shops Boulevard — waving signs and shouting at drivers to help save the prairie dogs — a few hundred yards behind them exterminators were already laying traps.
The grass-roots campaign, called Save the Castle Rock Prairie Dogs, wants to push back the construction of the Promenade at Castle Rock, at the north end of town between I-25 and U.S. Highway 85, near the Outlets at Castle Rock, until June.
That’s when the animals, many of them pregnant, could be moved. The prairie dogs are being trapped with baited cages. It is unknown how or if they are being killed at this time.
“Of course I was at the protest,” said Castle Rock resident Keith Lattimore-Walsh, one of about 40 protesters at the Feb. 24 rally. “My heart won’t allow me to do anything less than to fight for those who cannot speak.”
The controversy is part of the town’s continued conversation about growth and began when more than 20 residents spoke out against the Promenade at the Feb. 17 council meeting.
Activists said they hope snowy conditions and the slow pace of capture will give them time to find available land for relocation of the colony — about 1,000 prairie dogs.
“It’s slow, they aren’t capturing many at a time,” said Brian Ertz, board president of the activist organization the Wildlands Defense.
Alberta Development Partners, the developer behind the Promenade, could not be reached for comment about the removal of the prairie dogs, despite repeated attempts by the News-Press.
Town officials reiterated their stance that the situation is a matter of a private developer building on private land, therefore they have no jurisdiction to stop or delay construction.
This would be different if the prairie dogs were protected by state law, which they aren’t, because they are not an endangered species. [Not officially, buy they should be on the list–I challenge anyone who says prairie dogs are still common throughout the state.]
More: http://castlerocknewspress.net/stories/Activists-continue-fight-for-prairie-dogs,182035
http://www.peta.org/action/action-alerts/colorado-developer-halt-prairie-dog-massacre/
Poisoning and fumigation—the most common methods of killing prairie dogs—cause convulsions, vomiting, internal bleeding, gradual pulmonary and cardiac collapse, and a variety of other reactions that cause animals immense suffering and a slow, agonizing death. Yet developers of The Promenade at Castle Rock, a 160-acre mall project underway in the town of Castle Rock, Colorado, reportedly want to massacre hundreds (possibly thousands) of these animals who call the site’s open spaces and wetland areas their home. And despite an outcry from compassionate citizens, the Castle Rock Town Council has green-lighted this slaughter, which is scheduled to occur in the coming weeks. Your voice is needed!
Using the form below, please politely urge Alberta Development Partners and Castle Rock officials to halt this cruel killing initiative and to employ humane prairie dog control methods instead. And please forward this message widely!
Please send polite comments to:
Peter Cudlip, Principal
Alberta Development Partners
pmc@albdev.com
Castle Rock Town Council
TownCouncil@CRgov.com
Please feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.
Here is a short multiple-choice quiz to test your knowledge of our fellow animals.
Instructions: Choose the species that best fit the descriptions below.
Note: Although some may share a few of the characteristics, they must meet all the criteria listed in order to qualify as a correct answer.
1. Which two species fit the following description?
A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Dolphins
D. Penguins
Answer: A. and B
2. Which two species fit the following description?
A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Bison
D. Hyenas
Answer: B. and C.
3. Which two species fit the following description?
A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Cockroaches
D. Sewer Rats
Answer: Sorry, trick question; the only species fitting the criteria is A.
If this seems a harsh assessment of the human race or a tad bit misanthropic, remember, we’re talking about the species that single-handedly and with malice aforethought blasted, burned and poisoned the passenger pigeon (at one time the most numerous bird on the entire planet) to extinction and has nearly wiped out the blue whale (by far the largest animal the world has ever known). Add to those crowning achievements the near-total riddance of the world’s prairie dogs, thereby putting the squeeze on practically all their grassland comrades, and you can start to see where this sort of disrelish might be coming from.
When the dust settles on man’s reign of terror, he will be best remembered as an egomaniacal mutant carnivorous ape who squandered nature’s gifts and goose-stepped on towards mass extinction, in spite of warnings from historians and scientists and pleas from the caring few…
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The preceding was an excert from the book, Exposing the Big Game.
Keystone Prairie Dogs |
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Photo Copyright Jim Robertson
http://www.kdlt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35980&Itemid=57#.U3uMExXbiw4.facebook
May 19, 2014 5:59 PM
Many outfitters bring clients in to hunt pheasants, deer, and even prairie dogs in South Dakota. Recently the population of prairie dogs has been hurt by a plague, but hunters are still showing up in droves.
Prairie dogs may look cute, but their effects on pastures can be catastrophic.
“The prairie dogs from a ranchers stand point eat a lot of grass and almost mow it down to just basically dirt. They do a pretty good job of hurting the value of the land and how well you can utilize it, “said co-owner of Buffalo Butte Dillon Springer.
Some land owners though have found opportunity with the reckless rodents, which some affectionately call the barking squirrel.
“We started doing it five or six years ago just as a small blurb, some of our pheasant hunters wanted to do it, “said Springer.
A recent outbreak of Sylvatic plague has put a huge dent in some prairie dog populations, and that’s a good thing right? Not for outfitters who cater to clients who travel from all over the country to hunt the critters.
“You take those folks from the city who never see land that stretches out as far as this does, and they’ve got their guns that they just can’t shoot, “said Springer.
For many the prairie dog hunt brings a laugh and a reasonably easy shot. But they are now an important slice of the revenue pie for the outfitters.
“They are pretty resilient critters, they can bounce back from a lot of stuff, “said Springer.
Even with a plague and hunters trying to eradicate the vermin, they continue to hold their ground.
http://www.all-creatures.org/alert/alert-20140519-2.html
National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
May 2014
The U.S. Forest Service is considering a plan to poison as many as 16,000 prairie dogs in Wyoming’s Thunder Basin National Grassland. Prairie dogs are a keystone species and vital to the survival of many other animals. Tell the Forest Service to reject this heartless plan.
Image by Jim Robertson / Animals in the Wild
Sign an online petition here
And/Or better yet, make direct contact:
Thomas Whitford
District Ranger, Douglas Ranger district
Thunder Basin National Grassland
c/o US Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Region
740 Simms Street
Golden, CO 80401
(303) 275-5350 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 
(303) 275-5350 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting
In Wyoming, prairie dogs are slowly recovering from decades of hunting and disease, and Thunder Basin National Grassland contains some of their last protected habitat. But the U.S. Forest Service is considering a plan to poison any prairie dog colonies on the Grassland within a quarter-mile of private or state land. They could kill an estimated 16,000 prairie dogs, which are essential to the survival of many other species. Urge the Forest Service to reject this heartless and misguided plan.
SAMPLE LETTER:
I am outraged at the plan your agency is considering — to kill an estimated 16,000 prairie dogs in Thunder Basin National Grassland. This would be inhumane to the animals and environmentally disastrous for the Thunder Basin ecosystem.
In 2009, in an exemplary decision, you set aside 85,000 acres of grasslands to provide a safe haven for prairie dogs from being shot, poisoned or gassed. Today, the Thunder Basin National Grassland is part of the remaining two percent of America’s untouched prairie grasslands, and contains the best prairie dog habitat in the country. Prairie dogs are essential to the health of our grasslands but are victimized by misinformation and widely extirpated from their former range.
Furthermore, I understand the plan may call for anticoagulant poisons such as Rozol. Rozol, a barbaric poison, can take one to three weeks to kill prairie dogs. After being poisoned, they will bleed internally and externally, wandering more and more disoriented and vulnerable to predators. Animals that feed off of this keystone species — including golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, swift foxes, turkey vultures, badgers, raccoons and coyotes — will also fall victim to the poison and may die.
As a federal agency charged with protecting our nation’s unspoiled flora and fauna, the Forest Service must turn down this plan to poison prairie dogs in the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Please find alternative methods for managing this species and the wildlife which depend on them.
Sincerely….
or, send pre-written message here:
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
Exposing the Big Game 