Pressure on land owner to poison prairie dogs out

[Shoot_for_fun]

Hi, I am new to this forum and looking for information. I hunt prairie dogs on 10,000 acres in southwest Kansas. I visited with the landowner tonight to book my spring trip. He said he will probably be out of business next year as the county is pressuring him and his neighbors to poison out p-dogs. The cost for him to do this is $150,000, not exactly pocket change. Does anyone know a land owner that has faced a similar circumstance? I told him I would post on a couple of boards to see if some one had experience in fighting a scheme like this. My only suggestion was to tell all the hunters that have booked so far to bring their rimfires as well and wipe out as many as possible. Please if you have information send me a pm. Thank you.

 

[longshooter]

I would be interested in getting in on the hunt. Do you have any details?

Longshooter

 

[Goofycat]

What does the landowner mean by "pressure?" Seems to me that unless he is violating any laws that the city slickers have no business forcing him to spend a huge amount of money to eradicate his PDs. Besides, he needs to save his money in order to pay for Obama's multi-trillion dollar debt with which we will soon be burdened.

 

[jerrschmitt]

What are they doing to "pressure" him? Other states have tried to do this sort of thing but once PETA got wind of it, the poison folks backed off. Of course, then PETA went after the hunters.

 

[Goofycat]

Maybe the government Greenstapo should just send in a truckload of black-tailed ferrets. If they tried the poison trip in California, there would be hell to pay (VERY illegal...) because the F&G folks don't want to poison the birds after they eat the PD carcasses. They LOVE hunters to take care of their ground squirrel problem areas (no PDs in CA). And, I am happy to oblige.

 

[RJinTexas]

Shooting_for _fun, I've been shooting dogs in the Kansas for over ten years. The pressure being put on land owner to poison is absurd. First they disallow the use of chemicals that actually did work because it killed off other varmints that ate the poisoned dogs and it also kept birds of prey from reproducing. The new approved chemicals are twice as costly and half as effective and require addition treatments. It's true you can't completely eradicate prairie dogs by shooting them but we've proved over the years on the lands that we shoot that they can be controled. In fact a lot of the land owners where we shoot are checking with our outfitter to inquire if we're returning every year, some have stated that they save money not having to buy poison. Several have stated that they actually see better results from a couple of days work by proficient shooters then they've see after poising. It's nice to be welcome back each year. You would think the state government agriculture idiots would realize that shooting prairie dogs generates revenue, extra income for land owners, fees for outfitters, customers for local motels and cafes. But then again that would require a state officals to actually use common reasoning.

Regards
RJ

 

[Stoner25mkiv]

I feel like I'm not getting the whole story. Is he saying the co. is going to put him out of business somehow, or that spending 150K is going to bankrupt him? Is this 10,000 acres his, or leased from the co.?
More info.

 

[people]

The PD town I used to shoot on was next to a small town and its airport. This was not a real issue until the dogs got onto the landing strip. Over the years of shooting there I did focus shooting near the town and its landing strip. I had a few good spots to shoot from unseen. I shot out two rifles there and put a few others over the hill. No matter how many 500 to 1000 rd days I had I could not put a dent in the population. They kept getting closer and closer to the strip and once they were on it the town told him to cure the problem or they would and bill him for it. So he had a guy come in and poison them. I almost cried when I heard about that. I never had a day where I would shoot less than 300 rds.

 

[sdneil]

shoot for fun--I have lost more dog towns to the poison in the last 4-5 years than I would care to talk about, makes me sick! Kansas seems to have a crazy law about P Dogs, the county can make you poison them,and will help you with the cost, if you dont go along, they can poison and send you the bill, thats the way I understand it, not good! Dog towns are dissapearing in Kansas at an alarming rate, there has always been turmoil about this subject, the rancher who told you about this is telling you straight! Its terrible, not only do the dogs go by by , other animals that feed on the carcass may perish, bad deal all the way around. Neil in St louis

 

[Shoot_for_fun]

Yes the county can force you to poison them in Kansas. They are poisoning them but the county is not happy with the results. Yes he owns the 10,000 acres but $150k would break him. They are focused on all the towns not just him. Colorado isn't far away and I understand you can't poison or shoot p-dogs from I-25 east to the state line. How long does the county think it will take for the prairie dogs to repopulate a poisoned out town? sdneil we have the same understanding of how Kansas law works. My personal opinion is there are a lot of guys that come for the long shots and not necessarily to "shoot out the town" (if they all throw in a rimfire and a few bricks of ammo it would help!). As we all know it is darn near impossible to shoot out a town good shots can diminish the population quite a bit! His pricing is well below most places. I don't know if I can post links on here or not and don't want to appear to be an advertisement for his ranch. My main focus it to locate someone that has beaten the stupid law that allows them to poison out my recreational activity. I guess if you are a P-dog hunter and looking for a place to go let me know and I will send an email to you with a link to the website.

 

[sdneil]

Shoot for fun-- Two of the guys in colorado I shoot on have just poisoned several huge areas, you can get rid of them any way you want in Colorado if you are the property owner. One guy had an area so huge he could have made real good money letting P dog shooters on his property. The property owners can write a letter appointing you as agents to shoot unwanted varmints on his property,thus you need no license.I am always looking for a new dog town to shoot over, send me an PM with your guys ranch info, I may know him . You must be on private land ,early season Colorado, Neil,PS you aint gonna beat the system in Kansas

 

[oneflyer]

On a regular basis mountain lions are spotted in Pennsylvania. I guess what I'm saying is I believe this story about as much.

 

[sdneil]

one flyer--a sceptic for shure, every word I have posted here is true, have no reason to make this up.

 

[Shoot_for_fun]

Here are a couple links to Kansas papers that refer to the law that allows the counties to poison the prairie dogs. http://cjonline.com/stories/080507/lif_189133314.shtml -and- http://trib.com/news/opinion/forums/article_12b6a571-74cb-51ca-beaf-4f9fdaffd66a.html
The information I posted on Colorado is wrong, there was a ban on hunting them but that was removed years ago, right now it appears you can shoot them on private land year around but there is a season on them when hunting public lands. Sorry for the mis-information, I should have researched before posting on Colorado.

 

[sscoyote]

What is the reason they say he must posion them? Man if it were me i'd just take my chances in court. I just can't see how they'd win that lawsuit. I swear, seems like laws in this nation are getting more ridiculous by the minute.

 

[gristlehead]

The Kansas law dates back to around 1905, some counties have different ways of dealing with the landowners on cost share for treatment, depending on the county. There are a number of university studies showing the detrimental effect of pd's on grazing production and this is alot of the reason for getting rid of them. Also ask any county appraiser what it does to land values. There are some pastures that have virtually no sale value due to pd infestation. Most neighbors do NOT want dogs across the fence, kinda like having a nice house on a nice lot next to a rat infested dump.
As for the dog numbers in KS, the USFWS just concluded a survey that was required by a suit brought by the nature nazi's claiming that pd numbers warranted being listed as endangered. The results showed that the number of acres of dogs was actually on the increase. I believe this was just finished up in fall of 09, and was for the blacktail pd across its range.

 

[Bluto65]

If you think PDog laws are crappy wait until Barak Hussein
gets rollin, he is just now at the starting gate with control of
the US population;doctors,lawyers, carpenters, mechanics, truck drivers, school kids, parents, bankers,farmers etc etc. ALL OF US!

 

[FURMAN]

I have not checked for myself and read the law but the two farmers I hunt on say the county mandates they "control" the population. It does not dictate the method. So if a farmer/landowner proves he is controlling via another method i.e. hunters it should be ok. Again I have not checked for myself.