The Bush administration has pressured federal resource managers to make decisions that could hurt the black-footed ferret recovery effort in South Dakota's Conata Basin, according to the recently retired head of the federal ferret recovery program.

Mike Lockhart, who retired Jan. 3 after 32 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sent an internal memo charging that his former regional director and U.S. Forest Service officials bowed to political pressure in decisions involving ferrets and prairie dogs in South Dakota and elsewhere.

Conata Basin, just south of Badlands National Park, is home to the most successful black-footed ferret reintroduction in the country, he said. The project has been a cooperative effort among federal and state agencies and private groups.

Lockhart said the ferret population in Conata Basin is still doing well.

But he said his former boss with the Fish and Wildlife Service, retired Region 6 Director Mitch King, undercut efforts of the ferret-recovery team.

"The arrogance and recklessness with which Mitch made unilateral decisions affecting the black-footed ferret program have caused major, perhaps irreversible impacts to some (ferret) recovery sites and may impact our ability to promote recovery projects on other federal public lands," Lockhart wrote in the Jan. 7 memo. The Journal obtained a copy of the memo.

In a phone interview Thursday, Lockhart said his main complaint was that King made decisions about the ferret recovery program without consulting staff members directly involved.

Lockhart also said he didn't like how a decision was reached to allow poisoning of prairie dogs in buffer zones on the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, including Conata Basin, which is administered by the Nebraska National Forest.

Prairie dogs are the main food source for ferrets.

Ranchers complained that prairie dogs were stripping vegetation from the federal grasslands they lease for grazing and were encroaching onto their nearby private ranch land.

Lockhart acknowledged Wednesday that the buffer-zone poisoning has worked. "I just didn't like the way it came about and that other alternatives weren't tried."

But he criticized Nebraska National Forest Supervisor Don Bright of Chadron for considering plans to poison prairie dogs in the grasslands' interiors, and he blasted the Fish and Wildlife Service officials for going along. He said those plans, particularly an option that would set a cap of 12,000 acres occupied by prairie dogs in Conata Basin, could endanger the endangered ferret population there.

"The (Fish and Wildlife) Service should have never supported efforts to satisfy a ridiculous position brought about by the state of South Dakota and a careless Forest Supervisor," Lockhart wrote in the memo. He said Wednesday that he was referring to Bright.

"If you're going to do that, you're going to at least hinder growth on that recovery population, if not take it backwards," Lockhart said of the caps.

Bright plans to announce later this year his decision on several options for further control of prairie dogs on the national grasslands (see list).

He said Wednesday that some options include caps on prairie dogs, and other options have no caps.

Bright said he would make one set of rules for grasslands areas involved with ferret recovery and another set of rules for nonferret areas of the grasslands.

Bright said it is his duty to take state law into consideration when he makes his decision.

The state of South Dakota has pushed the Forest Service to abide by an agreement made by the late Gov. George Mickelson when the ferret reintroduction was proposed in the early 1990s, according to George Vandel, assistant director of the state Game, Fish & Parks Department.

That agreement called for a 12,000-acre limit on the number of acres occupied by prairie dogs. "If you're going to exceed that, you need to come up with compensation for landowners," Vandel said of the Forest Service's commitment.

Lockhart said political pressure on the prairie dog issue has come from Washington, both for the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. He said he heard that Gov. Mike Rounds sent a letter to President Bush complaining about the prairie-dog issue. "He (Bush) kicked it back down with instructions to fix it," Lockhart said. "You can fix things by engaging all parties and trying to come up with equitable solutions. But I think the current administration's idea of fix it is at the expense of natural resources."

Jonathan Proctor of Defenders of Wildlife, another prairie dog/ferret advocate, said the Lockhart memo "is another example of pressure from the Bush administration to ignore science and the plight of endangered species in favor of short-sighted political gain."

Bright said Lockhart was just speculating about political pressure.

But he said he consults with his regional forest supervisor in Denver, the

Washington office of the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and state agencies in developing prairie dog management policies.

"There are a lot of people we talk with," Bright said. "I'm influenced by 68,000 comments (received on the pending plan), by the ranchers I work with, by the conservation groups I work with."

Lockhart also said his outspoken advocacy on behalf of the ferret program earned him an unfavorable performance appraisal from King last year. He said the lack of support from the regional office prompted him to retire earlier than he planned.

The Journal was unable to locate King for comment.

Sharon Rose, a spokeswoman for the regional Fish and Wildlife office in Denver, said the agency would not comment on the memo.

Rose said she does not know where King lives now that he has retired. Lockhart said King may have moved to Montana, where he previously served with the Fish and Wildlife Service, but the Journal was unable to find him using Internet phone records.

But she said Lockhart's memo is timely because the office is in the midst of a five-year review of the ferret recovery program. "It doesn't hurt for us to see those things and keep them in mind," she said.

Nebraska official considers options

Nebraska National Forest Supervisor Don Bright of Chadron says he is considering five alternatives for further control of prairie dogs on the Buffalo Gap and Fort Pierre national grasslands in western South Dakota and the Oglala National Grassland in Nebraska.

In brief, the alternatives would:

* Limit prairie dogs to 12,500 to 19,000 acres in Conata Basin and would allow poisoning under certain conditions. Ferrets would be the priority in Conata Basin.

* Impose no change. There would be no cap and no poisoning in grasslands interiors, but poisoning would continue in buffer zones.

* Ensure that no more than 3 percent of a county's acreage of national grassland would be occupied by prairie dogs. That translates to a limit of 2,200 acres in Conata Basin.

* Limit prairie dogs to 8,000 to 12,000 acres in Conata Basin and would allow poisoning. No limits are established for the remainder of the grasslands.

* Allow prairie dogs on all available acres where prairie dogs are likely to establish colonies in all areas of the national grasslands. Poisoning allowed under certain conditions.

Ferret population growing in Conata Basin

The number of black-footed ferrets in Conata Basin has grown to at least 288, according to Scott Larson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Pierre.

The count was conducted from August through November last year, Larson said.

He said this year's count likely will find adult ferrets that were not counted in 2007.

He explained that the counting crews insert transponder chips using hypodermic needles in any ferrets that haven't been counted and "chipped" previously. If they find "unchipped" adults that obviously were alive the previous year, those are added to the past year's count.

The 2006 adjusted count was 260 ferrets, he said.

Larson said he isn't sure why the population is increasing. He said it could be due in part to a wider area covered in the 2007 count.

But he said that the count indicates the black-footed ferret population is in good shape.

The endangered ferrets were first reintroduced to Conata Basin in 1994.

Since then, ferrets from Conata Basin and elsewhere have also been reintroduced on the Cheyenne River and Rosebud reservations, to Wind Cave National Park and to other reintroduction sites out of state, Larson said.

Some kits were moved to Wind Cave late last year, he said.

He said the population is probably close to the number that Conata Basin will support under current conditions. "We try to crop some of those to other reintroduction sites," he said.

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com