Varmints!
Category: Nature...
Posted Friday, January 12, 2007 at 03:54 PM [GMT-6]

If you've dropped by BeanQuest lately, you know that Brian is dealing with mole problems. No, not the epidermal growths -- I don't know him that well -- but the lawn-ruining nuisance mammals. He's finding that some of the best options for dealing with the problem are out-of-bounds due to pesky things like firearms laws and so on.

We'd probably have the same constraints in west Texas, but there was a time when the dealing with varmints with extreme prejudice was not only desirable, but mandated. The following comes from this week's "90 Years Ago" as published in the Fort Stockton Pioneer:

A number of our land owners have been engaged in killing the prairie dog for some time and many of them have exterminated the dogs on their land, but the time is approaching now when a number of nonresident and possibly resident landowners are going to be penalized for not killing their prairie dogs. The Biggers' Prairie Dog Law makes it compulsory for all landowners to have their dogs killed by July 17, 1917.

I applied my usual exhaustive research methodology (two Google searches) and was unable to turn up any details on the "Biggers' Prairie Dog Law" (although I did find a 1903 law enacted in Kansas that pretty much declared was on the varmints). But the fact that Texas has a conservation and management plan to deal with "declining populations" of the black-tailed prairie dog is an indication of how things have changed over the decades.

And, as far as I could tell, nothing in that plan included the application of Juicy Fruit chewing gum as an anti-varmint measure.

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Heh. Along the lines of policy reversal (with respect to prairie dogs), a local zoo has a nice prairie dog exhibit. There is a large fenced area for the prairie dogs (presumably so that we can observe this nearly extinct pest). But they sit outside of the fence, beside the holes they dug to escape. They go back inside when it's time for dinner. ;-)

Posted by: Gwynne at January 12, 2007 05:49 PM

Prairie dogs... did y'all know in Lubbock, that you can adopt them as pets? My sister-in-law did such a thing, for my nephews, and those prairie dogs were smart little things.

But, of course. We already knew that, didn't we? They take over our land and we can't keep up with their high rate of multiplication - and they are cute enough, they garner great advocates.

Next, people will be adopting the pesky little mosquito.

EOS (end of story)...Nephews didn't keep the little critters long, they took them back. Turns out they carry disease. Mom could handle all the other stuff, just not that.

Posted by: Janie at January 12, 2007 07:20 PM
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