killing of coyotes. We are also opposed to the widespread
destruction of weasels, hawks, eagles, skunks, foxes and other
predatory animals.
The reason for this attitude is that for 10 years or so
we have watched the steady increase of mice, gophers, moles,
rabbits, and other rodents. Now we are at the point where these
animals take up to one-third of our hay crop and have cut the
carrying capacity of livestock on our range lands by as much as
one-half.
It is indeed shocking to see the devastation being
wrought by rodents on lands that were once highly productive.
Despite reseeding and use of sound soil conservation practices on
our land, we find that they are going downhill rapidly from the
standpoint of growing vegetation.
To combat the combined work of moles, mice, pocket
gophers, and other small rodents on our grasslands, this
association advocates the natural control system. In the past a
policy of individual and official action to eliminate the natural
enemies of these rodents has been employed. As a result the balance
between rodent and predator has been upset to the point of
constituting a general menace to our natural resources. We advocate
the protection and the promotion of all natural controls on the
rodents.
What with government hunters and government poison, the
predators have had a hard time. The coyote is nearly extinct in our
part of the state. Foxes and bobcats have succumbed to the
chain-killing poisons. There are fewer hawks and eagles every year,
and weasels, which are the natural controls of moles, are very
scarce. It is little wonder that we have so many
rodents.
This spring rodents have even killed sagebrush and
quaking aspen trees, and some bunch grass is so badly undermined
that it is dead. Serious erosion is taking place, even in the
National Forests, and fisherman are finding beaver dams washed full
of silt. Many sportsmen are predicting more deer will die of
starvation in the winter as the available foliage
decreases.
The Topognas Grassland Protective Association has been
formed to take action in this crisis. We strongly oppose the use of
chain-killing methods for control of any animal. By this we mean
use of any poison whereby another animal will suffer lethal effects
from coming in contact with, or eating the carrion or exodus from
an animal which has died as a result of consuming an initial poison
dosage.
In view of this policy, our association vigorously
opposes the use of 1080 poison in any form in the state of
Colorado. Our association now represents more than 200,000 acres of
land in this area. This means that on at least that much territory
coyotes and most other predators are to have a chance to live
without persecution and to increase in numbers so that they can
once again play the role that nature intended, and be an effective
check on the rodent population.
