Show killing OS oil the prairie dogs washington D 0 dec 19 the extermination of prairie dogs over large areas has been practically completed according to the report of the bureau of biological survey lust just published by the united states department part PaTt ment of agriculture and wide stretches of valuable grazing lands haae ha ae been pall rely cleared of tin this s pest il in national forests in colo rdo rodo new mexico utah and ma more than 95 per cent of the prairie dogs have already been destroyed et st active campaigns are in progress in Ariz arizonia onla new mexico montana a and nd south dakota and in the rio grande forest in colorado the average cost of distributing poison on areas infested nf ested by prairie dogs has now been reduced to less than 5 cents an acre in cases where re has made it necessary to go over the land again the cost baa has not exceeded scents an acre poisoned onel oats rats havo have been found to give the most consistent results except in the coconino forest in an art kaso encouraging an increase of pop bakion afon of beneficial birds the result a it of the second bird census in the spring of 1916 1915 showed that bird life can be largely increased throughout the country where efforts are made to protect the bird the tion increases rapidly of ahti new national bird res reservations irva ti ons established during the year two are in washington and one in minnesota in all sixty seven such reservations are now in charge of the department with few exceptions the conditions ou on them are said to be very favorable to the inci 91 ease of bird life |