We (Lakota) have a concept, a discipline that we articulate as “Woableza,” which is to carefully analyze a given situation, not only the long-term impact, but the bigger picture. We had to do so to survive the natural elements and human co-existence. But it’s a different world now and so the “relatedness” that was an essential element of our cosmology is often dismissed as irrelevant or stupid.

I’d still like to paint my big picture of the prairie dog.

Once upon a time, the human beings that needed to survive on the prairie saw (over a few thousand years) that everything had a purpose and that no one species was autonomous. We are all related. The buffalo, as a sacred (keystone) species, was the most responsible for the proliferation and diversity of other species. The pispiza (prairie dog) was its tightest kin, also bearing responsibility for the well-being of over a hundred other species.

But in the new world according to the anthropocentrics, there were too many Indians, too many buffaloes to support them and far too many seemingly-useless prairie dogs, and they all had to go in holocaustic order.

The natural world changed dramatically. Some ecological damage can repair itself and some damage is so great that it is irreversible.

I’m very confused about the smaller picture. I do know what the American culture is about – individualism and capitalism – and that people have to survive in a very fragmented, unrelated way. In that sense, I can see how prairie dogs can be a problem to beef production.

Even then, I think that prairie dogs are getting a bad rap. I’ve heard it said that they denude the earth and deprive the cows of grass and that cows and horses break their legs in the holes.

For one thing, prairie dogs proliferate where they are safe from predators. There are reasons, according to natural law, that prairie dogs do what they do (and they’re not tuned in to economics). And if humans could tune in to the Natural Law station, perhaps we could come up with wiser solutions than poisoning.

The cry for poisoning, I suspect, was a weak cry by affected few, but the politics of those times needed a handy issue. And so, the worst management plan was shaped by those who pretend to protect wildlife.

The current poisoning is decimating, not only the prairie dogs and interdependent species, but is also threatening the only thriving ferret population on the face of the Earth.

I am not a biologist or an expert of any kind, just a simple Lakota. But using common sense, I’d like to make humble suggestions.

Let’s not buy into this South Dakota prairie dog plan (when considering the bigger picture and the long haul, it’s just too costly). I trust common folks to ask their legislative leadership for honesty and express their concern about this matter. Let’s use our God-given brains to figure out a better alternative.

Appeal to your South Dakota legislators. Please ask them to reject any plan that forces landowners to poison prairie dogs on their own land.

By Rosalie Little Thunder, board chair of Seventh Generation Fund, board member of Predator Conservation Alliance and member of Sicangu Lakota Oyate.

Printed in the Rapid City Journal, South Dakota on 01.14.05.