The US Fish and Wildlife Service has moved one step closer to declaring the prairie dog - of which there are millions, with habitats in a dozen states - endangered. While the prairie dog is the kind of animal most people had in mind when the Endangered Species Act was passed, it's also not even close to being endangered.
Prairie dog-niks say the animals were here first, are no threat to humans and are a reminder of how the plains used to be, before farms, houses and strip malls.
Their allies include some people who don't like more development in general.
The first sentence is a collection of non-sequiturs. Of course the prairie dogs were here first. So were all animals. And an animal doesn't have to be a threat to humans to forfeit protection. It merely has to be non-endangered. Black bears are manifestly a threat to humans, but are a dime-a-dozen, and not on the list.
I wonder if Sen. Salazar and Gov. Ritter will be as quick to intervene in the federal regulatory process this time as they were in trying to prevent oil shale development.