Prairie Dogs: A Modern Day Plague :: Free Argumentative Essays

Prairie Dogs ? A Modern Day PlagueAlmost every Morning on the plains of easternColorado, rancher Ken Holmes squints through ariflescope and sights in on a fat, little prairie pawl.At the blink of an eye, he pulls the stumble and ahollow-tipped slug erupts from the barrel. Twohundred yards later, the slug explodes in the prairiedog scattering its ravaged flesh across the plains. Some mountain theorise that this is a horrible typify, but forranchers like Ken Holmes, its away to bear on hisgrazing surface areas. The prairie dog is a controversial animal because manypeople perceive them to be a prolific nuisance.Shooting and acerbateing has decrease an extremely largepopulation, which once covered most of the westernU.S. and Yankee Mexico. In Texas, the historicpopulation at the turn of the century in 1900 wasestimated to be approximately 5.5 billion animals.Today, numbers racket of prairie dogs in Texas are estimatedat only 300,000 (cdri). Maybe if these numbers keepdecreasing at such an alarming rate, the prairie dogproblem may actually come to an end. So no local,state, or federal government should try to bring thesenumbers up. This animal digs gigantic burrows, and makes extensivetunnels underneath the Earths surface (bitterroot). This essential act the prairie dog makes kills grass anddestroys fields taking away campaign for cattle and cropsfor food. Many scientists believe that this act is anatural fertilizer, swelled nutrients back to the soil(National Geographic p.116). If this natural act is afertilizer, then why are many ranchers and farmersfaced with a loss of money. commonly due to the factthat these burrows take up a wide bleed of theyrefields making it difficult to grow and raise anythingfor a profit. Also, if this fertilizing act actuallyfertilizes the land, then why is it that they seem todestroy a field rather than help it? Rather than try to shoot them or poison them, somehave tried to set aside protected areas, and relocatethe pr airie dogs. In Boulder, Colorado, approximately20,000 feet of visual barrier was installed alongboundaries of these protected areas. The terms of thatwas $23,000, but that figure represents only enough tocover about 7.5% of the circuit surrounding thearea. It would require an additional $242,350 tofinish that barrier. Instead of this expensivebarrier, relocating them was the plump for option. Inorder to do this, it would cost upwards of $100,000just to pop off them somewhere else (ci boulder). Thatis a lot of money to be throwing around on an animalthat not many people like. If people were going to