Rodent Control Aided by Emergency Conservation Work

Part 1

Produced by Tom Cosmas from materials provided by The Internet Archive.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | United States Department of Agriculture | | Bureau of Biological Survey | | ------- | | Wildlife Research and Management Leaflet BS-54 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Washington, D. C. Rev., December 1936 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+

RODENT CONTROL AIDED BY EMERGENCY CONSERVATION WORK

By Stanley P. Young, Chief, Division of Game Management

Contents

Page

Need for rodent control 1 Federal, State, and local cooperation 2 Training of E.C.W. crews 2 Timeliness of emergency aid 3 Forest and forage protection 3 Aid in erosion control 4 Examples of benefits derived 4 Safeguarding harmless species 5 Control work illustrated 6 Prairie dogs 7 Ground squirrels 13 Pocket gophers 15 Kangaroo rats 20 Rabbits and hares 25 Porcupines 27 A typical E.C.W. crew 30

Need for Rodent Control

The Emergency Conservation Work Program has been of inestimable value in the control of prairie dogs, ground squirrels, pocket gophers, kangaroo rats, rabbits, and porcupines. The citizens of the West have been forced to carry on campaigns for the control of these rodents since the settlers first staked out claims on the prairies. To the agricultural interests of the West the control of rodents is as vital as is the proper spraying of trees throughout the East to prevent damage by insects. These small mammals cover the western ranges by countless thousands, and control is necessary if crops are to be grown.

Rodent control is nothing new. Records indicate that as early as 1808, strychnine was shipped by boat around Cape Horn to the Santa Barbara Mission, Calif., in order that the early settlers might kill off the ground squirrels. A constant fight has been waged ever, since, but unfortunately, while the landowners were willing to finance the killing of squirrels on their own holdings, the Federal Government provided inadequate funds to take care of the vast areas of public domain, national forests, Indian reservations, and other Federal holdings.

Federal, State, and Local Cooperation

When the Emergency Conservation Work Program came into being, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Division of Grazing, and the Bureau of Biological Survey took the opportunity to treat a vast acreage that would have been treated years ago had funds permitted. During the three fiscal years 1934 to 1936 a total of almost 20,000,000 acres had been covered by E.C.W. for the control of these various rodent pests. On the statute books of several Western States rodent-control laws provide that landowners may establish rodent-control districts wherein all lands are treated simultaneously by paid crews working under the supervision of the Biological Survey. Never before the E.C.W. program were there adequate Federal funds to make these laws effective by taking proper care of infested public lands adjacent to private holdings.

The most concrete proof of the necessity of rodent control is found in the amount of money expended by private individuals throughout the West for this purpose. The Federal Government, while owning as much as 60 percent of the land in many of the Western States, contributes only about 25 percent of the total cost of rodent-control operations. During the fiscal year 1936, States, counties, and private individuals expended $665,785 for the purpose, while the Biological Survey was able to expend only $226,623 from regular appropriations. The E.C.W. program afforded the first opportunity of somewhere near meeting the Federal Government's obligations to the citizens of the West in the matter of adequately controlling the rodent pests that breed and range on public lands and from these strongholds infest and reinfest adjacent private holdings.

Training of E.C.W. Crews

Rodent control is one of the most popular projects with E.C.W. enrollees themselves as well as with the local people benefited. In many cases, crew foremen supplied by the Survey took boys who would not work satisfactorily on any other type of project and made real hands of them on rodent-control crews. The boys liked to work in these crews, as it afforded them opportunity to become acquainted not only with methods of rodent control but with the various habits of wildlife as well.

In order to employ proper methods and place all possible safeguards around poisoning operations for the protection of beneficial and harmless species, the Biological Survey has insisted upon approving the appointments of all men employed on the supervision of rodent-control work for its various cooperating agencies. This is for the reason that when poisoning campaigns are properly handled and carefully supervised, there is little danger of the accidental poisoning of other animals. The records indicate that there have been practically no cases of destruction of other forms of life through the E.C.W. rodent-control program. Naturally, the supervisors not only must know rodent control but also must be acquainted with the habits and status of wildlife in general, and in handling the crews they have imparted knowledge to the beys that will be of permanent benefit to them and to the Nation.

Educational programs were provided as regularly as possible, in order to tell the C.C.C. enrollees of various wildlife problems. The entire personnel of E.C.W. camps were shown films depicting the work of beavers, showing measures for the protection of elk, deer, and other big-game animals, and portraying the need of sane, sensible conservation methods, in order that the remnants of our fast-vanishing forms of valuable wildlife might be preserved. Mimeographed leaflets on wildlife management studies were made up by district agents of the Survey for the boys in order that they might be given as broad instructions as possible in the protection and preservation of species that are an asset rather than a liability to man's interest. It has been the attempt of the Biological Survey to make the rodent-control project a field laboratory for the education of the enrollees in natural history and wildlife management, and the popularity of the project among the boys attests to the wisdom of this course. In many camps more applications for places on rodent-control crews were received than there were places to fill.

Timeliness of Emergency Aid

Fortunately, the E.C.W. program came at the most opportune time. The extreme drought throughout the west had forced rodents from the open lands into adjacent irrigated valleys and mountain meadows, where they became especially objectionable in their competition with livestock for the available forage. Livestock and rodents together, during dry periods, have in many places almost entirely denuded the surface soil of its vegetation. This has caused the beginning of sheet erosion in areas where there would still be ample forage for livestock had it not been for the excessive numbers of rodents. On many areas, grazing by livestock and rodents combined has practically eliminated the native grasses, and these are now being replaced with weeds and poisonous plants. Damage in some instances has amounted to at least 75 percent of the available forage, and the average loss has probably been approximately 25 percent.

On some of the Indian reservations of the Southwest, the condition has been pitiful. On the Navajo Reservation, in particular, the Indians have carried on a losing fight against drought and rodents. It has often been necessary for them to replant their corn three and four times a season, since kangaroo rats and other native rodents dig up the kernels as rapidly as they are planted. Prior to the spring of 1936, there had been four years of drought, and this, coupled with rodent damage, had reduced corn production to the point where the Indians had barely enough for the spring seeding. All were clamoring for aid, and in order to save their last crop of corn it was necessary to detail a foreman with four or five E.C.W. Indians to go from farm to farm and conduct rodent-control operations.

Forest and Forage Protection

The Forest Service is endeavoring to carry on a reforestation program throughout much of the cut-over area in the Lake States and the Pacific Northwest. One of the chief problems to successful reforestation is the control of rodents, particularly the snowshoe hare. In the Olympic Forest in Washington, the snowshoe hare has destroyed as much as 40 percent and damaged 70 percent of the Douglas fir seedlings. In Michigan and Wisconsin, it was necessary to carry on extensive rodent-control operations to permit the seedlings to survive. Much of this work would never have been possible but for E.C.W. help.

In the open area, jack rabbits have become a serious pest. The Biological Survey, in 1934, received a petition bearing the signatures of more than 8,000 individuals of eastern Colorado, requesting Government aid in killing jack rabbits, which were ravaging the meager stocks of forage left after drought and wind had taken their toll.

The Forest Service recognized that rodent control would be essential if the Plains Shelterbelt program of planting trees from the Canadian border to Texas was to be effective, and in 1935 approximately one-tenth of its entire appropriation for the program was expended for rodent control under the supervision of the Biological Survey. Crews patrolled the planted areas constantly to prevent the gnawing of the seedlings by jack rabbits and pocket gophers.

Continue reading Rodent Control Aided by Emergency Conservation Work free in the Wunder reader →