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Show . prairie Hog Transplants I Utah Division of ' , Resources will again ' .'plant Utah prairie dogs 1 Spring in several ifrn Utah counties. t nit Utah prairie dog is one Le species in the state, larger white-tailed ; -'f.fie dog occupies the pastern part of the state; 1 zuni prairie dog, the tieastern. 1 ne Utah praine dog is 1(i , no other state and t: ' received considerable at-",uon at-",uon in recent years : !e of its decreasing "' -:,e in southern Utah. It . iSted as an endangered niedn 196& removed from ; :,, classification in 1970 and ified as endangered in .: n " 'THE status of the Utah urie dog has been of some 1tem to us," says Al Heg-chief Heg-chief of nongame -.lapement with the DWR. .( hope, through our ' -jiagement program, to ,.mce it from the endan-srtd endan-srtd species list." ki ' 4eggen points out thai ' re is only one good gauge ij'ifie success of the Endan-I Endan-I Jrai Species Act, and that is jiral of a species from the I fingered list. THE decline of the species a teen significant. In 1920 '"f1-6 approximately 95,000 Utah prairie dogs Today there are less than 7.0O0. Some losses can be attributed at-tributed to natural causes such as disease and drought However, the plight of the Utah prairie dog is more closely related to poisoning indiscriminate hunting and habitat loss during the twentieth twen-tieth century. BUT Heggen indicates that the prairie dog's situation has improved recently. There has been an increase in numbers during each of the last three years. The purpose of the transplanting program is not to restore the Utah prairie dog to all of its original range. RATHER, the program will relocate dogs to parts of its historic range on Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and state of Utah lands. The dogs will receive more protection on public land than on private land, where more than 50 percent of the animals live now. Heggen points out that the DWR is not trying to saturate the state with Utah prairie dogs. It is attempting, however, to establish a diversity diver-sity of colonies on public lands that can be maintained for posterity. |