Groups ask court to support black-footed ferret recovery

Amanda Pampuro

DENVER (CN) — Environmental groups urged the 10th Circuit on Monday to reject a U.S. Forest Service management plan for Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeast Wyoming that failed to consider nonlethal prairie dog management practices and removed the goal of supporting black-footed ferret recovery.

“The Thunder Basin is absolutely essential for ferret recovery,” attorney Megan Backsen, on behalf of the advocacy group Western Watersheds Project, told the three-judge panel. “The acreage is not the only factor here, it doesn’t matter how much acreage you offer if the area is like a war zone.”

While their range once stretched across the Great Plains and semiarid grasslands of the West, the keystone species black-footed ferrets have been endangered in the U.S. for 55 years following systematic poisoning of prairie dogs combined with habitat loss and disease.

The Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeast Wyoming covers 553,000 acres of land managed by the government patched around 1 million acres of state and private land. In addition to serving as wildlife habitat, the grassland supports energy extraction and provides forage for livestock.

Because prairie dogs compete with cattle for grass and dig burrows that can injury people and their livestock, the rodent and ranchers have long been at odds. The black-tailed prairie dog population in Thunder Basin however makes the grassland ideal for black-footed ferret recovery, since the weasel depends on the rodent for food and shelter.

In 2020, the U.S. Forest Service approved the Thunder Basin National Grassland’s resource management plan removing measures aimed at protecting the prairie dogs and preparing to bring back the ferrets.

Western Watersheds Project, Rocky Mountain Wild and Wildearth Guardians sued the federal government in November 2021 in Washington over the plan that would allow poisoning and recreational shooting of prairie dogs in Thunder Basin.

The case was transferred to the District of Wyoming in September 2022. A federal judge affirmed the Forest Service rule on Sept. 23, 2023. Western Watersheds appealed.

U.S. Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich asked whether the environmentalists were simply looking to preserve the status quo.

“The correct outcome here should have been that the agency select the no-action plan, is that right?” asked the George W. Bush appointee.

Blacksen explained that the no-action alternative would do the least damage among the offered alternatives since the government didn’t consider plans without lethal management or that would use change current grazing allotments.

“The range of alternatives are incomplete,” Blacksen said. “If you constrain the purpose and need too narrowly then you end of with a range of alternatives that aren’t different at all.”

The federal government countered that the no action wasn’t an option after the prairie dog population swelled beyond control in 2017, covering 75,000 acres of land until a wave of sylvatic plague knocked the population back down to 1,100 acres. Until the prairie dog population is under control, the government argued, there is no point in trying to bring in ferrets.

U.S. Circuit Judge Scott Matheson questioned whether the government had adequately taken a hard look in creating or analyzing the alternatives.

“More lethal controls’ appears in every alternative, isn’t that a problem?” asked the Barack Obama appointee.

U.S. Attorney Amy Collier countered that nonlethal management methods could be used under any plan, and that the government didn’t consider things that hadn’t worked in the past.

 “The Forest Service had many, many years with the previous plan and found it did not support flexible management of the prairie dog population,” Collier argued.

Collier said the idea of using nonlethal measures alone was dismissed as many were expensive, ineffective or time-consuming.

“What I’m looking for is a hard look at the combined effects of the lethal control measures, which had appeared in previous plans,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Carolyn McHugh, an Obama appointee.

With her clock running out, Collier rebutted the implication that the government didn’t care about the ferret.

“I would like to push back on the idea that it’s open warfare on prairie dogs,” Collier said. “Appellate counsel called this a ‘war zone.’ The Forest Service feels very strongly about preserving this habitat for the prairie dogs and other important species.”

State attorneys Travis Jordan represented intervening party Wyoming.

Outside the courthouse Backsen said, “Their interest in the hard look analysis is encouraging.”

The court did not indicate when or how it would decide the case.