Farmers can blame it on Pres. George W. Bush if more pasture land resembles prairie dog ravaged moon-scapes as many South Dakota farms do now. That's because meddling into the endangered species list by the Bush administration, not known for protecting the environment, might have the unintended consequence of protecting that rancher's bane, the prairie dog.

In South Dakota, ranchers near the Badlands National Park say that prairie dogs protected there eat up all the parks grass, then chomp their way through pastures on nearby private land as well as pastures that ranchers rent from the federal government. That coupled with a drought has hurt area ranchers who are restricted on what they can do to combat the pests.

Although prairie dogs are small, if there are enough of them, they can manage to hog all the grass that a herd of cows would normally feed on.

"It's like a moonscape out there, but this should be the greenest, nicest part of the year," rancher Charles Kruse told the Associated Press.

To avoid having his cattle's stomach's rumbling from hunger, Kruse has had to cut his cattle herd by 50 percent because of the amount of grass the tiny prairie dogs have packed away in their stomachs, along with less grass to begin with from a drought.

Critics say that Bush administration meddling could result in strengthening the arguments of Forest Guardians and other groups. They have asked a federal judge to order the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rethink protecting the prairie dog.

That could prevent ranchers from doing anything to exterminate prairie dogs and cost them a lot of money, farm advocates say.