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CEDAR CITY, Utah (AP) -- A Cedar City golf course has a few extra holes -- prairie dogs have dug burrows all over the place. They steal golf balls and collect them in their burrows.
When it rains, the rodents clean house and put the balls in a circle around their burrows.
Golfers and local officials also complain the Utah prairie dogs are treating the greens as their own salad bar.
Trying to control the population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been trapping the critters and relocating them to other federal lands in southwest Utah. Now conservation groups are suing to put a stop to it, saying 90 percent of the relocated prairie dogs are dying from stress.
Three Western conservation organizations -- Forest Guardians, Utah Environmental Congress and the Center for Native Ecosystems -- filed the federal lawsuit along with naturalist-author Terry Tempest Williams.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
