Ranchers take prairie dog question to S.Dak. Supreme Court

After years of watching prairie dogs destroy their pastures and farmlands, a group of landowners hope the state Supreme Court will finally agree with them that the state is legally bound to control the prairie dogs invading their lands. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in their case at 9 a.m. CDT, today when the court meets at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. "We're just trying to get the state government to follow state law," said Gary Williams, an Interior-area rancher involved in the 6-year-old dispute. In 2005, almost 40 landowners joined a lawsuit to force the South Dakota departments of Agriculture and Game, Fish & Parks to control black-tailed prairie dogs that were encroaching from federal lands onto private land where the rodents ate grass and crops vital to the ranchers' survival. Kruse expects Hurley to persuade the court that the Legislature has passed adequate laws to give the secretaries of Agriculture and Game, Fish & Parks all the direction they need to control prairie dogs...more