The fate of the prairie dogs matters
News of dead prairie dogs found in traps by Santa Fe Place mall is a really big issue, bigger than most might think. These incidents are regrettable reflections of general human attitudes and conduct in the face of a mounting environmental catastrophe placing us at the center of decision-making that will affect the outcome of all life on Earth.
Prairie dogs are native wildlife, and wildlife populations are in steep decline as a swollen and increasing human population wreaks havoc on the planet’s life-supporting ecosystems. Here in the Southwest, our megadrought (directly linked to anthropogenic climate change) has forced some state agencies charged with managing wildlife to deliver water to animals for use at remote, artificial watering holes. A slump in deer survival rates prompted the Utah Wildlife Board in April to reduce hunting permits for 2021, although only by 7.1 percent.
One recent 15-year academic study highlighting the
biodiversity crisis documented a 98 percent decline in a local burrowing owl population — a species known to share habitat with prairie dog colonies — due to rising temperatures and aridity.
We have a dynamic in place that largely drives our spiraling political, economic and cultural conflicts, the very woes many point to in response to something as seemingly trifling as the compassionate act of feeding burrowing animals next to a Walmart parking lot. As social desperation and chaos ramp up, our more reactive segments are unable to comprehend the mechanisms underlying our vicious circles of decay, understanding what really matters, what the causal factors are, where to find reliable information about the world. There is no wisdom of the crowd.
The real preoccupation here is overconsumption and the American rat race spread the world over, a mind-numbing distraction suppressing observation and critical thought, thwarting the process of learning to connect the dots, and making it yet more difficult to see clear-eyed. We make the world we live in, and until we can see that, upholding our falling house of cards will become out of reach.
I was involved with 1990s efforts to rescue imperiled urban wildlife that led to the city’s prairie dog protection ordinance. Unfortunately, its drafting was scaled back, hampered by compromises to the point of being perhaps a liability, not an asset, for implementing prairie dog protection in Santa Fe. Since the plight of wildlife is not isolated by issue or by jurisdiction, there is much the city, if serious, should propose, working to thoroughly integrate wildlife policy with land and water use, development, education and funding.
The challenge, if taken, is acting on the understanding that the state of affairs no longer warrants compromise and collaboration, and probably never has. Extricating our society from ruin is a daunting undertaking, necessitating a cessation of many established activities with entrenched, fanatical followers. “Stakeholders” will bellyache at their exclusion from the table. A torrent of misinformation and misguided, hostile resistance will need to be overcome by a capable and confident government. Otherwise, nature will upend our civilization on its own, a comeuppance of our own hubris.
Scott M. Smith grew up in Gallup and Santa Fe in the 1970s, lives in Albuquerque and photographs New Mexico landscapes.