The Coconino sun., 1920-10-22
THIS STOCKMAN KILLS
 MANY PRAIRIE DOGS


 man of Seligman, has just completed a splendid piece of range improve ment by killing the prairies dogs from $40 acres of land near his headquar- ters S5 miles northeast of Seligman. This was more in the nature of a practical demonstration which will lead to the clearing of many thous- and acres of land of this pest. The area treated was on the Hualpai In- dian reservation and the prairie dogs in this region have been destroying from 25 to 50 per cent of the grass on the open range. The loss from this source runs into thousands of dollars on Mir. Caufman's range alone, to say nothing of the adjacent holdings of other stockmen. MT. Caufman had for many years endeavored to kill the prairie dogs with various mixtures, but with little or no success until he had come to the conclusion that they could not be controlled. This fact reached the office of officials of the U. s. biological survey and arrangements were immediately made for test on GAO acres of land. l.. G. Metcalf, rep resenting the survey and the Univers- ity of Arizona, was assigned to the supervision. MT. Caufman furnished the men and horses and the state and government the poisoned grain. On the first day small tablespoonful of clean imprisoned grain was placed at each active prairie dog burrow. The prairie dogs cleaned this up in a hur- ry, so two days later a tablespoon of the new tasteless poison grain recent ly perfected by the government, was placed on the same spots as the form CT imprisoned rolled barley. The prairie dogs immediately thought that another free feed was scheduled and they devoured the poisoned grain readily. Within 10 or 15 minutes af- ter eating but from 5 to 8 kernels of the grain they began having fits and every prairie dog on the area was dead before sundown. The number killed is estimated from 5000 to D. 900. It is fact now well establish ed that no matter how tasteless poi son is or how we'll prepared that un- less an area is first pre-baited with clean, imprisoned grain and then fol- lowed two days later with the poison ed grain that you can only kill 50 to fO per CtHl Ol tiit pcsts, put py loi- lowing the pre-bait method you can kill from 95 to 100 per cent in one treatment.
 Mir. Caufman accompanied MT. Met calf in inspecting the area treated at his place and was so well pleased with the results that he is working out a plan whereby all of the stockmen in this vicinity will cooperate with the survey and the university in clearing the entire range in this vicinity of the prairie. dogs. The work on the Cauf- man ranch cost around five cents per acre and under the plan being work ed out by Mir. Caufman and the gov. ernment officials the stockmen will furnish the men, horses, subsistence, etc, while the survey will furnish the man to supervise the work and the poisoned grain. This is possible, as the range is situated on the Hualpai Indian reservation and is federal land. This will mean thousands of dollars to stockmen of northern Arizona on this one project alone.
 Every farmer and stockman in the state of Arizona is allotted an amount of free poisoned grain by the state and federal governments for controll- ing rodent pests whether they be prairie dogs, gophers, jackrabbits or