August 12, 2004

Black-tailed Prairie Dog Removed from Candidate Species List

An updated evaluation of the best available scientific information has led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine that the black-tailed prairie dog is not likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future and no longer meets the Endangered Species Act definition of threatened. Therefore, the prairie dog will be removed as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. A finding that the black-tailed prairie dog does not warrant listing was delivered today to the Federal Register.

“With new information regarding the range-wide impact of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors and recent state estimates of occupied black-tailed prairie dog habitat, the Service has determined that the black-tailed prairie dog does not meet the Endangered Species Act’s definition of ‘threatened’,” said Ralph Morgenweck, director of the Service’s mountain-prairie region.

Until now, the best scientific and commercial information available to the Service indicated that the impacts of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors were substantial enough to warrant listing of the black-tailed prairie dog as a threatened species. Since 2002, State agencies, Federal agencies, Tribes, and other parties provided additional information regarding the black-tailed prairie dog which was considered by the Service in an evaluation of the status of the species.

Previously, the Service focused attention on a few large black-tailed prairie dog populations impacted by sylvatic plague and assumed that population losses at these sites were indicative of losses across the species’ entire range. Based on new data, these assumptions no longer appear appropriate. Dramatic fluctuations in the amount of black-tailed prairie dog occupied habitat at specific large complexes may occur due to plague or chemical control, but they do not appear to influence range-wide species persistence. Recent information illustrates the prairie dog’s resiliency to short-term, site-specific population declines....