Wyoming rancher sentenced in prairie dog killings
By CLAIR JOHNSON
Of The Gazette Staff
A Wyoming rancher who admitted illegally poisoning thousands of prairie dogs on federal land in Montana apologized in court Tuesday as he was fined and sentenced to probation.
"I acknowledge this mistake,'' said Stanford M. Clinton Jr., 73, of Recluse, Wyo. Clinton owns the Three Bar Ranch in Wyoming and Montana. "This was not a malicious act. I'm genuinely sorry it happened.''
U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson ordered Clinton to spend one year on supervised probation, fined him $1,500, ordered restitution of $3,500 and directed him to perform 200 hours of community service work in Montana.
Clinton pleaded guilty in February through his attorney to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized range treatment on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
Because of declining populations, prairie dogs are a candidate species for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Prairie dogs are considered a keystone grasslands species because so many other species depend on them for food and shelter. Ranchers, however, view the rodents as pests because of their burrowing and grass-clipping habits.
Clinton's appearance in court Tuesday was his first in the case. The judge did not require him to appear in person when he was charged or when he pleaded guilty.
Clinton wasn't going to have to appear for sentencing, either, but Anderson changed his mind and ordered the rancher to appear.
Using a large map, Clinton told the judge he was "positive'' the sprayer he had hired did not intend to treat BLM lands. Clinton said he should have conducted a survey to identify boundaries and supervised the job. "It was careless and negligent not to do so,'' he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leif Johnson disagreed with Clinton's characterization of the events as an accident. "This was a willful poisoning of prairie dogs on federal lands,'' he said.
Anderson said Clinton appeared to be denying any criminal conduct in the case by "calling this whole thing a bad mistake'' and gave him the option of withdrawing his plea and going to trial. Clinton stuck to his guilty plea.
Johnson said Clinton asked the BLM's Miles City field office in June 2000 for permission to poison prairie dogs on BLM lands. The agency denied the request and warned Clinton that unauthorized control would violate BLM rules.
In the summer of 2000, Clinton hired a spraying service. Johnson said Clinton took the sprayer to the prairie dog towns, which straddled the boundary between his ranch and BLM property, and directed him to poison the entire complex of towns.
About 58 acres were BLM lands, the government said. BLM investigators found evidence of poisoning more than a half-mile within the BLM boundary. Johnson said thousands of prairie dogs died. The prairie dogs have since repopulated the area, he said.
The case did not affect Clinton's grazing leases, said BLM Special Agent Brian Cornell.
