SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday not to hear an appeal from Cedar City residents challenging endangered-species protections for prairie dogs, but the plaintiffs say their case alleging that their community has been overrun by the animals has made a mark as the Trump administration moves to loosen the contested rules.
The lawsuit was a key driver of the new federal plan that would make it easier to remove or kill prairie dogs, lawyers for the residents said Monday
Animal activists, though, say the administration’s proposed rollback of protections for the threatened Utah prairie dogs would be a death warrant for animals when they’re found on private land. They’re considered key to the ecosystem because their burrows turn up the soil and can be used as homes by other animals. They’re also an important food source for predators.
“I believe that any attempt to transfer more control over to local government hostile toward protection of certain threatened and endangered animals is a bad thing and can only place more species in peril,” Harris said in an email.
Iron County Commissioner Dale Brinkerhoff told St. George News he is disappointed the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
“I thought it had merit,” Brinkerhoff said. “We were very hopeful the court would take it up and rule in our favor.”
Brinkerhoff said he is working on a general conservation plan for prairie dogs that will not mandate how many prairie dogs can be taken from private land. Right now, there is a quota that determines how many prairie dogs can be taken from private land, Brinkerhoff said
The Utah prairie dog was listed as endangered in the 1970s when their numbers dropped to 2,000 as land was cleared to make room for farming, ranching and housing.
They rebounded under federal protection and numbered about 26,000 in spring of 2015, according to state tallies. The numbers have fallen somewhat since then, to about 21,000 animals, though state wildlife managers chalk that up to normal ebbs and flows.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has said its plan will preserve the prairie-dog numbers while helping frustrated property owners in Cedar City. Comments are being taken on the plan through Jan. 20.
The Supreme Court’s decision ended the long-running federal lawsuit filed by a group calling itself People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners in 2013. They won an unusual court victory when U.S. District Judge Dee Benson struck down Endangered Species Act protections in 2014, a ruling Wood said was the first of its kind.
The group represented by the California-based Pacific Legal Foundation said federal regulations protecting the creatures blocked residents from doing what they wanted with their own property. The rules forbade doing things that might affect the creatures, including shooting them or moving them or building fences, with few exceptions. They said that led to burrowing creatures moving into playgrounds, cemeteries and backyards.
Activists said the decision threatened to undermine the Endangered Species Act, and an appeals court overturned it this spring. The high court declined to reconsider that decision.
Written by LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press
St. George News reporter Spencer Ricks contributed to this report.
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Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Can’t some of these rodents be moved to California? Bay Area? Sacramento?
Would seem to anyone with a brain that Cedar has a lot bigger problems with thieves, drug dealers, addicts, child molesters, and even mormons than they do with these poor little furry critters.
Caliphonia has plenty of rodents as it is. We need to send some of the local pests there, instead.
I’d say they ship all these wonderful Cedar residents to Kalifornia and let the rodents have the whole place
Well somebody can’t count duh. the decimal needs to be moved over a couple. Yep it’s only 260.
Badgers? Yes what you need are some Stinking Badgers…..