Commissioner wants city help paying for federal trapper

Red Willow County commissioner Leigh Hoyt wants the City of McCook to pay a portion of the wildlife services contract that commissioners approved Monday morning.

Ryan Arrington of Palisade, wildlife specialist with USDA Wildlife Services, presented the 2008-2009 contract for $7,029, for trapping and eradication services throughout the county.

The new contract is $639 more than last year's contract of $6,390.

Arrington's 2007-2008 paperwork indicates that he worked 205 hours in Red Willow County; he estimated that half of those hours were inside the city limits of McCook.

Hands-on work (which does not include time compiling paperwork and records) included coyotes, prairie dogs, 17 opossums, 33 raccoons, one badger, one skunk and one feral cat. Other than the coyotes and prairie dogs, Arrington said, most of the animals trapped were within the city limits of McCook; most of the raccoons were around McCook Community College. The skunk was taking up residence in the backyard of a home in a northern West Third housing subdivision, he said.

Hoyt said he would like to talk to McCook city council members about splitting the cost of Arrington's services. Arrington said that if he did not respond to wildlife calls within McCook, he would put his time elsewhere in the county, probably working prairie dog infestations.

Commissioners unanimously approved Arrington's 2008-2009 contract.