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BY LANCE [email protected]
Until Dakota State University associate pro-fessor Kristel Bakker undertook a new project, the best guess anyone had about the population of ground-burrowing owls had in South Dakota was an estimate from years ago that arbitrarily put the number at between 100 and 1,000 breeding pairs.
The good news?That’s way low. “We extrapolate there’s
more than that based on what we found,” said Bakker, who had a South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks state wildlife grant to do some initial survey work on that population of birds.
“They’re a species of concern in the United States,” Bakker said. “We have more of their popula-tions in the Great Plains so it’s a bigger concern for us. They’re showing declines throughout their range.”
The western burrowing owl – Athene cunicularia hypugaea to ornitholo-gists – was once common across all of South Dakota but has now disappeared from most of East River
except in the plateau region called the Missouri Coteau, a short way east of the Missouri River. Most of the state’s ground-bur-rowing owls now are found west of the Missouri River, usually living in prairie dog towns.
“In western South Dakota or South Dakota in general, probably 99
percent of our burrow-ing owls are in prairie dog burrows,” Bakker said.
Although most scien-tists don’t believe bur-rowing owls eat prairie dogs – they prey instead on insects such as beetles and grasshoppers and small mammals such as mice and voles – they use the burrows as dwellings
and they seem to like the visibility that a closely cropped prairie dog town affords.
Bakker, who specializes in grassland bird research, said that close association with prairie dogs makes it easy to look for the owls: Simply visit prairie dog
The voice of central South Dakota since 1881
Tuesday, August 6, 2013 www.capjournal.com Volume 132, Issue No. 153 75¢CRODEO ROLLING INTO TOWN
Sully County Fair boasts home-grown entertainment and top rodeo contestants A2
Area News A2-A3 Region A4 Health A5 Sports B1-B2 Comics B3 Entertainment B4 Classi� eds B4-B5
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PIERRE, S.D. — Duane Delaney of Pierre didn’t have to go far to claim his $499,694 Wild Card 2 jackpot from the Aug. 3 drawing. He lives within walking distance of the Pierre Lottery office and the store where he purchased his win-ning ticket is just up the street.
Delaney claimed his prize, won on a Quick Pick ticket purchased from Fresh Start-Chekkers on East Wells Avenue on Aug. 5. The store will receive a $4,996 bonus for the sale. Delaney purchases two Powerball, two Hot Lotto and two Wild Card 2 tickets for each drawing, and knew the day after the draw that he was the Wild Card 2 jackpot winner.
Pierre man claims $499,694 Wild Card 2 jackpot
Dan Elwood of Fort Pierre shot this photo of the railroad bridge between Pierre and Fort Pierre at sunrise o ne morning last August when the water was as still as a looking glass. To submit images for “The land,“ send your best shots to [email protected]. (Courtesy of Dan Elwood)
That time of year againThe land
YOUR PHOTOSemail [email protected]
DSU scientist: Ground-burrowing owls more common than previously thought in SD
BY BOB MERCERSTATE CAPITOL BUREAU
A battle over health insur-ance coverage might be moving from the Legislature’s cham-bers to the privacy of the voting booth.
Voters could get the opportu-nity next year to decide whether to allow patients more freedom to choose their providers of
medical services, rather than be limited to those participating in their insurers’ networks.
Even with patient choice, however, the preferred provid-ers would have to be willing to
accept the contract terms set by insurance companies for their existing providers.
The Legislative Research Council recently completed the required review of a pos-sible measure. The next step is whether to officially file it with the secretary of state and begin the petition drive for signatures.
The internal deadline for reaching that decision is prob-
ably the end of this month, according to Mike Shaw. He is a Pierre lawyer involved in the patient-choice effort.
A similar proposal was attempted in the 2013 session of the Legislature but failed on the final vote.
“Based on this support and the support of a growing num-ber of citizens across the state, we are seriously exploring the
options of an initiated measure including whether to circu-late petitions. However at this time no final decision has been made,” Shaw said Monday.
Seeking the legislation in the 2013 session were Black Hills Medical Hospital of Rapid City and three statewide asso-ciations for chiropractors,
Voters may get chance to decide on patient choice
See CHOICE, A6
See LOTTERY, A6
Duane Delaney of Pierre won the $499,694 Wild Card 2 jackpot on Aug. 3. (Courtesy photo)
The western burrowing owl was once common across all of South Dakota but has now disappeared from most of East River except in the plateau region called the Missouri Coteau, a short way east of the Mis-souri River. (Courtesy of Kristel Bakker)
See OWLS, A6
www.capjournal.comwww.capjournal.com
RODEO ROLLING INTO TOWN
Four rescued after watery crash near HayesBY CAPITAL JOURNAL [email protected]
HAYES, S.D. — Members of a Pierre Fire-Rescue team donned wetsuits late Monday after-noon to help rescue passengers of a Chevrolet Impala that crashed through some reeds and landed in a waterway after leaving U.S. Highway 14 near Hayes.
South Dakota Highway Patrol officers and the Stanley County Sheriff’s Office were investigat-ing Monday evening. Few details were available at press time but officers said four people were in the vehicle. There were no fatalities at the scene.
See CRASH, A6
The odds of winning the Wild Card 2 jackpot are 1:1,898,688 and the game is played only in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. The jackpot currently sits at $200,000 for the next drawing on Wednesday.
A similar proposal was attempted in the 2013 session of the Legislature but failed on the � nal vote.
“The whole grassland bird suite is in trouble. They’re linking it mostly to habitat loss and invasive species such as smooth brome grass and some woody species. All grassland birds are declining. They evolved with seas of grass, no woodland, no cropland anywhere,”
Kristel Bakker,Dakota State University
associate professor
EAGLE ARTSouth Dakota artist
working on memorial for slain officers A3
Rescue crews worked to free the last of four occupants of an eastbound Chevy Impala that left U.S. Highway 14 and landed in a waterway near an abandoned bridge at the outskirts of Hayes late Monday afternoon. (Lance Nixon/Capital Journal)
