The black-tailed prairie dog frolics on more than 2 million acres in 11 states. There are perhaps 20 million of the critters - and quite possibly millions more. As recently as four years ago, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service concluded that the animal was "not likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future."

So why did that same federal agency announce this week that it would spend the next 12 months evaluating yet again whether the prairie dog should be protected? Because environmental activists never sleep. They file one lawsuit or petition after another seeking endangered listings for literally hundreds of species in the West - some because the creatures may actually be threatened but many because such listings will impose additional regulation across giant swaths of land.

And so the wildlife service responds to these maneuvers - if nothing else, it keeps lawyers and bureaucrats busy.

Meanwhile, in some ways the black-tailed prairie dog appears more secure today than it did at the beginning of the decade, when estimates of its occupied habitat were much smaller.

Take Colorado. In 2000, the state Division of Wildlife estimated that 214,000 acres statewide were occupied by prairie dogs. Since then the estimate has grown by a factor of three, mainly as a result of more careful surveys.

Just four years ago, the Fish & Wildlife Web site said the black-tailed prairie dog could be found in 10 states. Now it says 11.

To be sure, the plague has ravaged some major prairie dog colonies of late - including those in the Comanche National Grassland in southeast Colorado. But this is not a new phemenonon, either.

"Dramatic fluctuations in the amount of black-tailed prairie dog occupied habitat at specific large complexes may occur due to plague or chemical control," Fish & Wildlife said in 2004, "but they do not appear to influence range-wide species persistence. Recent information illustrates the prairie dog's resiliency to short-term, site-specific population declines."

No matter. This superfluous review must go on. No wonder public lands agencies are perennially "underfunded."

The stupidest law

Is criminal libel absolutely the stupidest law in Colorado? Probably not, but offhand it's hard to think of one that's worse.

Its antiquated language alone is enough to give the game away. You can be charged under criminal libel for "tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead" (what, no more bad words about John Dillinger?) or for publicizing "the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule."

Political commentary often targets the "natural defects of one who is alive," so it's hard to imagine how anyone who publicly comments on the news couldn't be charged under the criminal libel statute. But of course they never are. So why keep the law on the books?

Apparently in order to scare the daylights out of the likes of J.P. Weichel of Loveland, who was charged recently with criminal libel in Larimer County over posts he made on Craigslist's "Rants and Rave" section.

Rant he did - allegedly about his ex-lover and her attorney. As the Rocky explains, "Court records show one post suggested she traded sexual acts for legal services from her attorney, and there was a mention of a child services visit made because of an injury on her child."

Every state allows civil suits by people who believe they've been defamed. But most states do not have a criminal libel statute under which someone can be sentenced to 18 months in jail for what he said.

Weichel may not be a very nice guy, but the answer isn't to put him in jail for speech that doesn't endanger a soul. If what he said was false, then the victims should sue him for libel.

But leave the district attorney out of it.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.