Cajnpadgns for Control of Ground Squirrels. 9 



COOPERATION EFFECTIVE AGAINST PRAIRIE-DOGS. 



Prairie-dogs also, which greatly reduce the carrying ca- 

 pacity of the pasture ranges of the West and lay waste the 

 gram and vegetable crops of the farmers, are giving way 

 before the systematic poisoning campaigns organized to 

 eradicate them. The extermination of these animals upon 

 large areas of national forest and other public land in Ari- 

 zona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and 

 Oklahoma by field parties of the Biological Survey showed 

 conclusively that these foes of the agriculturist can be effec- 

 tually and economically exterminated by properly directed 

 effort. Their ravages have been so severe as not only to 

 cause a marked reduction in the products that could have 

 been harvested from the acreage planted, but also to dis- 

 courage settlement and in many cases' actually to drive out 

 settlers who were not able to maintain themselves in the face 

 of such depredations. 



Observing the results obtained by "poisoning parties" of 

 the department upon public land, ranchmen and farmers 

 have petitioned urgently for assistance. The pressing need 

 for increasing food-crop and live-stock production empha- 

 sized the importance o'f eliminating this direct and prevent- 

 able source of loss. Poisoning parties upon Government 

 land were stationed where the work would be of the greatest 

 possible value, by increasing the live-stock carrying capacity 

 of the Government ranges, and would protect the forage and 

 crops of ranchmen and farmers from destruction by prairie- 

 dogs coming from the Government lands. At the same time 

 an active campaign of demonstrations was undertaken in co- 

 operation with the State extension services in Arizona and 

 New Mexico to promote extermination of these pests on pri- 

 vately owned agricultural and grazing lands. This resulted 

 in the planting to crops of considerable areas which would 

 have been left uncultivated but for the successful extermi- 

 nation of the prairie-dogs and in the saving of important 

 yields of wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, beans, and alfalfa from 

 destruction by them. 



