Alleviating pain or diminished quality of life are often the reasons behind humane pet euthanasia.

Choosing to euthanize a pet can be sobering. Most pets are valued members of their families and the idea of living without the companion that has shared the ups and downs of life can be heart-wrenching. However, while some animals die  peacefully on their own — and pet parents hope their favorite pets will gently expire in their favorite curling-up spot — many animals have strong wills to stick around with their pet parents and may live on despite a poor quality of life. It’s in their nature to mask pain and illness, so it may be difficult to determine the extent of illness or failing.

While pet parents cannot control all of the factors, the one thing you can do is alleviate pain and suffering to a companion animal. In many cases, the decision to euthanize a pet is the most humane option available. So how do you determine if it is time for euthanasia? There are certain questions to ask that may precede the choice.

• Is your pet in pain that cannot be alleviated by other methods?
• Does your pet have a terminal illness that has progressed?
• Will more treatment create a poor quality of life?
• Has your pet lost most of his normal bodily functions, such as getting up, walking, going up and down stairs, and relieving himself properly?
• Does the pet still want to eat?
• Are the dog or cat’s gums pink?
• Are you putting the pet’s best interests at the forefront, or are you simply extending the animal’s life for your comfort?
• Can you afford the vet care or further treatment?

Answering these questions can help pet owners make a more educated decision. If you are still having difficulty determining if it’s the time to say goodbye, talk with a veterinarian. He or she is in the business of saving pet lives and will not encourage euthanasia if it is not the right time. Most people and vets agree that it is better to euthanize your pet earlier than later so that he or she will not suffer unnecessarily.

Others prefer to make a list of what their pet enjoys, i.e. chasing a ball, being petted, eating, going for rides. Set a minimum that must be reached for quality of life. If the pet falls below this minimum, then euthanasia should be considered. Couples who have a pet may disagree on the time to euthanize. But ultimately the needs of the pet should be put before personal feelings.

Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is seldom easy for anyone. But euthanizing an animal when his or her quality of life has diminished vastly is often the humane way to let a pet go.

Only a quarter of the people who took part in a recent AP-Petside.com poll said animal shelters should sometimes be allowed to put animals down as a population control measure.

Gisela Aguila, 51, of Miramar, Fla., believes shelter animals should only be euthanized when there is no chance they’ll be adopted — for example, if they are extremely ill or aggressive. “I don’t think shelters should be euthanizing animals to control the population,” she said.

She’d like to see an end to shelters destroying animals when they run out of room, saying, “We are way too civilized of a society to allow this.”

This undated photo courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society shows Turtle Dove, a Labrador retriever, resting at the Best Friends Animal Society in Kenab, Utah. Best Friends Animal Society operates the country's largest no-kill sanctuary for abandoned and abused animals. (AP Photo/Best Friends Animal Society, Molly Wald)

But Leslie Surprenant, 53, of Saugerties, N.Y., believes shelters should be allowed to control populations. She says no-kill shelters that only accept animals with good prospects for adoption or that turn away animals once the shelter reaches capacity do not solve the problem.

“That doesn’t truly mean no-kill shelters. It means there are more animals out on the streets being hit by cars and starving and living in Dumpsters,” said Surprenant, who has two dogs and a cat. “It does not mean the general population is lower; it just means that they’ve opted not to kill.”

Surprenant believes spaying and neutering is the way to go. In fact, higher rates of spaying and neutering in recent decades have cut the number of abandoned puppies and kittens, which in turn has cut euthanasia rates. Before 1970, about 20 million animals were euthanized each year in this country. In 2011, fewer than 4 million abandoned animals were euthanized.

Younger pet owners are most likely to favor no-kill policies, with 79 percent of those under 30 saying shelters should only euthanize animals that are untreatable or too aggressive, compared with 67 percent of those age 50 or over saying that.

The poll results are encouraging to leaders of the nation’s no-kill movement, who’d like to see the U.S. become a “no-kill nation” with homes for every adoptable pet, and euthanasia reserved only for extremely ill or aggressive animals.

Any plan will take teamwork between shelters with government contracts that must accept every animal and the no-kill shelters that often only take animals they can help, said Ed Sayres, president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Rich Avanzino, president of Alameda-based Maddie’s Fund, pioneered no-kill in San Francisco in the early ’90s through a pact between the open-admission city shelter and the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“We are just a breath away from doing what is right for the animals,” Avanzino said.

He believes the country can achieve no-kill status by 2015, partly due to corporate giving to animal causes, which totaled about $30 million in 2010 and is expected to reach $70 million by 2015. That money can help with spaying, neutering and outreach, he said.

Public attitudes are also changing, with more people saying it’s unacceptable for pets to languish or die in an animal shelter, Avanzino said.

Avanzino pioneered the no-kill concept in San Francisco. Sayres succeeded him and nurtured it, then went to New York and implemented it there in a much bigger way. The model is the same, but instead of two partner agencies like in San Francisco, New York has 155, Sayres said.

About 44,000 animals enter New York City shelters each year. Since Sayres has been there, the euthanasia rate has dropped from 74 percent to 27 percent.

The ASPCA has also teamed up with 11 communities from Tampa, Fla., to Spokane, Wash., in no-kill efforts, Sayres said.

He believes he will see a no-kill nation, at least for dogs, in his lifetime. Cats may take a little longer because of the large feral population, he said.

The euthanasia issue attracted some attention this week when it was reported that a stray cat being held at a West Valley City, Utah, animal shelter survived two trips to the shelter’s gas chamber. The shelter has stopped trying to kill the cat, named Andrea, and she has been adopted. Shelter officials are investigating why the gassing failed.

Best Friends Animal Society operates the country’s largest no-kill sanctuary for abandoned and abused animals. The Kanab, Utah, preserve is home to 1,700 dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, horses and wildlife undergoing rehabilitation, said Best Friends director Gregory Castle.

More than 800 grass-roots rescue organizations belong to Best Friends’ No More Homeless Pets Network and are working to make their communities no-kill, Castle said. Attendance at an annual conference for network members has grown from 250 in 2001 to 1,300 last year.

The sanctuary’s newest venture is a groundbreaking effort involving what Castle believes is the largest public-private partnership ever forged in the no-kill movement.

Best Friends is going to operate a shelter for the Department of Animal Services in Los Angeles as an adoption and spay and neuter center, he said. All animals will come from six open-admission Los Angeles city shelters.

The coalition’s initial goal is 3,000 adoptions and 6,000 sterilization procedures, Castle said.

Differences in the varying no-kill campaigns are mostly a matter of nuance, Castle said, and how you define sick and aggressive.

Nathan Winograd, director of the Oakland-based No Kill Advocacy Center, believes 95 percent of all animals entering shelters can be adopted or treated. And even though the other 5 percent might be hopelessly injured, ill or vicious, he said they should not all be doomed.

Some, if not most of them, can be cared for in hospice centers or sanctuaries, he said. As for pit bulls and other dogs with aggressive reputations, he said shelters need to do a better job of trying to find them homes.

The AP-Petside.com Poll was conducted Oct. 13-17, 2011, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,118 pet owners. Results among pet owners have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

___

AP Global Director of Polling Trevor Tompson, Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Fight the urge to swerve as you brake if you don’t have time to check traffic first, said Julie Startup, a Washington State trooper and spokeswoman in the agency’s Seattle and Bellevue area.

“If you are able to make a safe lane change, by all means do it,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Tamara McCormack, a spokeswoman in the Los Angeles office. But swerving without looking could result in an accident.

The size of the animal matters. If it’s shorter than your car’s hood and you don’t have time to check other lanes, go through it, Startup said. If the animal is taller than the hood, avoid it if you can, knowing it still might be better to hit the animal.

“These crashes happen so fast, often times drivers don’t have the option of making a decision about what to do,” said Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, “but the best thing, unfortunately, in most cases is to hit the animal and try to avoid swerving or doing something that could cause you to lose control and hit somebody else or an object or go off the road and roll over.”

Most human injuries from animal collisions occur not when animals are hit but by the crash that follows. And most fatalities could be prevented by using seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles, Rader said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recorded 173 fatal crashes and 12,000 injury crashes involving animals in 2009, the latest year statistics are available, said spokesman Jose Alberto Ucles.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates there are more than 1.5 million crashes involving deer each year, resulting in more than $1 billion in vehicle damage annually.

Very few dogs, cats or other small animals are included in national studies about animal strikes because they are not reported to police or insurance companies, Rader said. But using data from several agencies, including NHTSA, the institute did a comprehensive study in 2004 that found 77 percent of reported animal crashes involved deer, 10 percent involved cattle, 6 percent horses and 6 percent dogs. “We even had one case that was a bear,” he said.

If your own dog gets out of the car or house, “do anything you can to keep it from moving in the direction of traffic,” said Cheryl Conway, a spokeswoman for the Aurora Animal Shelter in Colorado.

“Do not chase it,” she warned. “Try calling and running in the opposite direction, like you are playing.”

In this Friday, Jan. 6, 2012 photo, Bonny Kelani reacts as a car approaches by while she is being walked by Cheryl Conway on a sidewalk in Aurora, Colo. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

One of Conway’s three Labrador retrievers is Bonny Kelani, who was 7 months old when someone threw her off a freeway overpass in Aurora.

Foster families cared for her through thousands of dollars in surgeries and weeks in rehab. Conway’s family was Bonny Kelani’s fourth foster stop in July. They officially adopted her in August.

Bonny Kelani is still afraid of traffic, Conway said. The first time Conway tried to take her for a walk next to a street “she panicked. Like a colt on a rope, she reared back and almost flipped over.” The family has tried sitting with her on the porch and in the yard but when she gets close to the road, she still tries to get away.

Bonny Kelani owes her life to the good Samaritan who took her to the hospital, but experts recommend letting authorities handle animals hurt in crashes. “If they are injured, they will lash out and bite anything without realizing what they are doing,” Conway said.

If you hit an animal and your car will make it, get off the road and call 911. And if you do try to help a dog or cat, cover it first with a blanket or towel so it can’t hurt you.

Based on claims, State Farm Insurance estimated there were 1.09 million crashes between deer and vehicles in the United States between July 1, 2010, and June 20, 2011, said company spokesman Eddie C. Martinez in Los Angeles. That is 7 percent lower than a year earlier and down 9 percent from three years earlier, he said.

Pennsylvania had the most deer-vehicle crashes, with 101,299, Martinez said, followed by Michigan with 78,304. But he said the chances of a driver hitting a deer in the next 12 months are greatest in West Virginia, at one in 54. That’s better than a year ago, when chances were one in 42, he said.

Martinez said the average cost of a crash with a deer is $3,171, up 2.2 percent from a year earlier.

Deer are most active between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and during mating and migration season, typically fall and winter. Top months for deer-vehicle collisions are November, October and December, according to research from State Farm.

Watch for deer crossing signs, use your high beams whenever possible at night, don’t rely on car-mounted deer whistles and remember that deer usually travel in herds, he said.

It’s typical for snowy owls to arrive in the U.S. every three or four winters, but this year’s irruption is widespread, with birders from the Pacific Northwest to New England reporting frequent sightings of the yellow-eyed birds. As many as 30 were spotted in December around South Dakota’s Lake Andes.

“Thirty in one area, that’s mind numbing,” said Mark Robbins, an ornithologist with the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.

A snowy owl clings to a powerline, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 near Lake Andes, S.D. The Arctic creatures have been seen from coast to coast more frequently this winter and have reached further south than in past years. (AP Photo/Dirk Lammers)

The arrival of the birds, which can top 2 feet in height with a wingspan of nearly 5 feet, is the result of a plentiful population of Arctic lemmings this summer, which led to a strong breeding season, said Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Mont.

Lemmings are snowy owls’ main food source, and the baby boom is sending many of the youngsters across the border to scrounge for voles, field mice, rats, rabbits and shore birds.

“It’s very unusual, because it’s coast to coast,” said Holt, who has been researching the owls’ Arctic habitat for 25 years.

Snowy owls are drawn to frozen lakes, which remind them of their tundra back home in the Arctic, Robbins said.

“And if they’re finding rodents there, they’re staying there,” he said. “And perhaps seeing a couple of more snowy owls there, they may think, ‘OK, this is a hot spot.’”

The owls have been regular visitors to Boston’s Logan Airport, and one even showed up just after Thanksgiving in Hawaii. Chicago’s Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary has become a haven for the creatures, with “countless sightings” this season, said Matthew Cvetas, an Evanston, Ill., birder.

“It’s just been really incredible,” he said.

Cvetas said owl sightings are exciting for birders, as the creatures are mostly nocturnal and difficult to spot. Though snowy owls hunt day and night, the allure of their plumage helps make them a prize sighting.

“Here’s the largest North American owl in terms of weight, a near all-white ghost of a bird for an adult male,” said Cvetas, who has spotted four snowy owls since November. “For me, it symbolizes wilderness at its best.”

Missouri and Kansas typically draw just a few snowy owls every three or four years, but reports this year have been widespread, Robbins said.

Birders spotted three snowy owls sitting on an irrigation unit west of Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri’s borders with Nebraska and Iowa, and there have been five of the birds hanging around Smithville Lake just outside of Kansas City.

“In Missouri, I don’t think there’s ever been two at a single site,” he said.

People have always had a fascination with owls, but the book and 2001 film “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” in which a snowy owl named Hedwig first appeared as Harry’s companion and mail courier, thrust the species in the spotlight. Holt said the movie series helped land the winged creature a December 2002 National Geographic cover story.

“We were inundated with phone calls from people about all these kids wanting to have pet snowy owls,” Holt said. “It just went crazy for a while there.”

Snowy owls begin life with a mix of white and dark brown feathers. Males, which tend to be smaller, lose their dark feathers as they age, with many winding up pure white. Their lifespan is not known, but Holt estimates that snowy owls can likely survive 10 to 15 years in the wild and three decades in captivity.

There’s no good estimate on the size of their population. Holt recalls a study in which researchers working on a Canadian island found thousands of snowy owls one year, only to follow up the next year to find not a single one.

Bird watchers have reported higher-than-normal numbers of Snowy Owls across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and the white, yellow-eyed birds have been spotted as far south as Kansas. (AP Photo/The Bellingham Herald, Andy Bronson, File)

“They’re too spread out and they move around too much,” Holt said.

Holt said snowy owls are remarkable predators, nearing flying speeds of 70 miles per hour with the ability to attack and eat creatures as large as Canada geese and great blue herons. Yet despite that diverse diet, their breeding seems dependent on a single food source — the Arctic lemming.

He said this year’s influx is following in Harry Potter’s footsteps to return the snowy owl into the public spotlight, which is great for the species and his research.

“It’s wonderful,” Holt said. “It’s great for snowy owls. It’s great PR.”

State health officials are warning central Kansas residents to avoid a creek near Herington following a sulfuric acid spill.

The Department of Health and Environment issued the warning for 5 miles of Lime Creek north of U.S. 56. The acid leaked Sunday from a ruptured tank on a Union Pacific rail car at a rail yard, sending 11,000 gallons of the pollutant into the water.

The health department says people, pets and livestock should avoid drinking from the creek or using it for recreation.

KDHE will continue testing the water to determine when it is safe again.

As rewarding as adopting a pet can be, there is a right way and a wrong way to approach pet adoption. Before signing any papers, consider the following do’s and don’ts of pet adoption.

DO

Know why you’re adopting a pet.

The ASPCA recommends that prospective pet parents ask themselves why they want to adopt a pet before beginning the process. Men and women have all sorts of reasons for adopting a pet, be it companionship, a gift for the kids or to fill the void left by a recently deceased pet. Before beginning the process, prospective parents should determine their reason for adoption. If the reason is viable, continue with the process.

Honestly assess your lifestyle.

Just because you love animals does not mean your lifestyle is suited to having a pet. Today’s men and women are arguably busier than ever before, something that can be detrimental to pets, who still need lots of affection and attention regardless of how busy their owners are. An honest lifestyle assessment should give people an idea if their lifestyle is conducive to pet ownership.

Choose the right pet.

Choosing the right pet involves more than finding the friendliest puppy or the cutest kitten. While compatibility is important, it’s often additional factors that determine if a pet and pet owner are a good match. These factors include space restrictions in the home, amount of time spent in the home and the presence of others, be it children or roommates. For example, a big dog like a St. Bernard is likely not an ideal fit for a man or woman who lives in a studio apartment, nor is a pet who requires lots of attention good for a person who is rarely home. Individuals who don’t spend much time at home might be better off with a cat who prefers solitude, while those who live in small apartments might be best suited to a small dog or cat. Choosing the right pet involves careful consideration of these external factors.

Pet adoption candidates should expect and be willing to train their animal should they be approved for adoption by the local shelter.

Be willing to train the pet if need be.

The ASPCA notes that lack of training is one of the most common reasons men and women cite when returning an animal to a shelter. Pet adoption candidates should be willing to train the animal, as effective training opens the channels of communication and results in a longer, healthier relationship.

DON’T

Adopt on a whim.

Adopting a pet without carefully considering all the pros and cons is a great way to find yourself returning the pet to a shelter. Shelter animals are often most victimized by adopting on a whim, as the cost of adoption greatly pales in comparison to purchasing an animal from a breeder. Because those adoption fees are so low, it’s not uncommon for men and women to write off the fee as a loss and return the dog to the shelter. This is cruel to the animal and can be easily avoided if people who want to adopt do so after carefully considering everything that goes into being a pet owner, as opposed to adopting a pet after a weekend visit to the local shelter.

Adopt if finances aren’t great.

Pets make great companions, but they can also be expensive. Men and women considering adoption must make an honest assessment of their finances to determine if they can truly afford having a pet. The cost of pet ownership extends well beyond the initial adoption fee, as pets need food, shelter and sometimes medication just like their human counterparts. Prospective adopters can visit the ASPCA “Pet Care Costs” chart at www.aspca.org/adoption/pet-care-costs.aspx to get a better idea of just how much caring for a pet will cost.

Consider pet adoption a minor commitment.

Pet adoption requires a significant commitment that will no doubt alter a person’s lifestyle considerably. Men and women who enter the adoption process with a carefree attitude are likely to be among the many people who unfortunately return their animals to shelters every year. If you’re not willing to make that lifestyle change or commit fully to the animal, don’t adopt.

For more adoption tips or information about adoption, visit the ASPCA at www.aspca.org

The deer are being felled by epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, which is spread by midges, tiny insects that pass infected blood from one animal to another. Because of the drought, the deer are drinking from shallow, stagnant water, which is a perfect breeding ground for midges, The Wichita Eagle reported (http://bit.ly/n3xiZf ).

“We had a guy in (Monday) who’d found 13 dead deer in two sections,” said Lloyd Fox, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism big game program coordinator. “We’ve had them found from about all over the eastern one-third of the state.”

Whitetail buck in velvet

It also has been documented as far west as Butler and McPherson counties in recent months.

Deer with EHD often have their tongues hanging out and have lesions on their tongues. Their hooves often fall off and they eventually head to water because of high fever. Cattle can catch EHD but it rarely kills them, and sheep can be vulnerable to the disease. The disease cannot be passed to humans or pets.

Fox estimates some areas in northern and eastern Kansas may lose 25 to 30 percent of the deer herd this year. But many places in Kansas are losing only a few animals.

“In some areas (in other states) they find more than 100 deer. Most of our employees haven’t found more than two or three together,” Fox said. One game warden found five dead deer together in Greenwood County.

Joshua Whitehill, of Latham, said he saw four deer, three that were trophy-sized bucks, thought to have died from the disease in southeast Butler County since Friday.

EHD “is definitely going to have an effect on those who hunt mature bucks this year,” Whitehill said.

Fox said the worst EHD outbreak in Kansas was about 1990 in north-central regions of the state.  A few years later, the disease apparently killed a high percentage of the pronghorn antelope population in the Flint Hills. In western Kansas, where water is usually scarce, deer have developed immunities to the disease.

Fox said temperatures cold enough to kill insects are the best way to fight the disease. And he said a good rain would help slow the disease because water is more plentiful and the deer spread out.

“I’m not really into animals that much, but there’s no choice,” Yurth said in a recent interview.

This Sept. 8, 2011 photo shows Cindy Yurth, president of the Black Hat Humane Society, carrying a rescued puppy in Smoke Signal, Ariz.

Yurth is a reporter with the Navajo Times and the president of the Black Hat Humane Society, the only humane society on the Navajo Reservation.

The organization, named after a rock formation resembling a black cowboy hat in the Tse Bonito area, was founded about 10 years ago by a group of animal lovers who could not look the other way while hundreds of abandoned and feral dogs starved to death or got run over on the major highways leading to the reservation.

“I like my garden. My flowers. I really don’t like having this many pets. I could live without animals, but can’t ignore suffering,” Yurth, 52, said.

As Yurth walked that afternoon through her garden of colorful flowers, a half dozen dogs, among them three playful puppies, ran behind her. Yurth walked with extra care to avoid stepping on dog poop, and when she found a clear spot in the green grass she sat down.

The dogs surrounded her, wagging their tales and craving affection.

A stray female she rescued from the streets of Smoke Signal that morning lay on her back and let Yurth rub her belly.

“You know you are safe here, don’t you?” she told the dog. “You need a name. How should we call you? ”

Just a few hundred yards behind the Yurth’s fenced backyard a dozen cows walked on the side of the road, followed by a group of horses. They all shared the busy road with a caravan of automobiles. A few stray dogs could be seen sleeping in the parking lots of the gas stations, grocery stores and houses of Chinle.

When the sun goes down, the hungry dogs prey on what they can, Yurth said, noting that a few months ago she saw a pack of dogs attack a baby horse. When she called animal control in Window Rock, “they said, ‘Call us when they attack a human.’”

The next day she saw the horse laying dead on the side of the road.

“There are so many stray dogs, animal control could only do so much,” Tamara Martin, one of the founders and the secretary of the Black Hat, said during a telephone interview from St. Johns.

Like Yurth, and most of the volunteers who foster dogs and cats for the group, Martin recognizes the only way the stray epidemic can stop is with community education, and by living up to example. She said it is not about pointing fingers. Although the majority of the stray dogs are owned by the Navajo people, she does not blame anybody for not looking after their dogs. The dogs used to have a job on the farms, herding sheep and protecting the homes. Now that the people live in small communities, and have replaced their livestock for expensive pickups and technology, the value of animals has depreciated.

“We think that the way to change things is to set an example,” Martin said. “Each animal rescue is making a difference.”

Martin said her organization rescues an average of 300 dogs a year. That may not seem much compared to more than 200,000 strays Kevin Gleason, Navajo Nation Animal Control Program Manager, estimates are running loose on the reservation.

The difference between Martin’s program and other humane societies in the country is that each dog that comes out of her foster homes is guaranteed as a “nice adoptable dog.”

Martin said although her volunteers love animals they are realistic about dog placement. Some of the dogs they rescue have been abused or become so aggressive it’s best to put them down humanely than place them for adoption. At the foster homes, activists are able to evaluate the character of the dogs, train and socialize them, and make sure they are good companions. If they were to keep them in cages at a shelter, that would not be possible.

“When we put a dog up for adoption, we know all these things, if they like to chase cars, if they are cat killers. We have to do what they call the triage. Select the friendlier, more adoptable.”

The Black Hat philosophy may seem extreme to the type of animal lovers who live by the “all pit bulls deserve a chance” motto, Martin said. But after what she has seen on the reservation, and at the Nation’s shelters, she believes selection of the best adoptable dogs is key to successful placement.

Animal control on the reservation is about 50 years behind, Martin said. She has visited the Nation’s Animal Control quarters in Fort Defiance and witnessed in horror the conditions in which animals are held while waiting euthanasia.

The shelter has six cages, she said, but when animal control officers conduct “dog sweep” operations and capture dozens of dogs, they are all caged together. By law officers have to wait three days to give the rightful owners a chance to claim them, which rarely happens, so dogs fight in the cages, kill each other, and end up eating the dead, she said.

It’s about the dogs’ survival, she said, adding that the dogs that survive in the streets are the smartest, the ones that know best how to behave well while hanging around humans. Those are the dogs that understand aggression won’t help when waiting for a compassionate soul to feed them.

And those are the dogs that tourists tend to pick up and take with them.

“People say these rez dogs are so friendly, you give them a little affection and they’ll go with you,” Martin said.

Dangerous levels of the toxic algae prompted Kansas health officials to post advisories and warnings since May. Ron Kaufman, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, said the algae blooms, along with weather conditions, prompted numerous cancellations at state cabins and campsites.

“It certainly had a significant impact on our state park system and even more on the other parks and businesses in the area, particularly at the larger reservoirs,” Kaufman said. “Visitors basically stayed away if they couldn’t get in the water or take their pets in the water.”

In this, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011, photo, blue-green algae drying on the beach over goose footprints is seen at Big Creek State Park near Polk City, Iowa.

He said the agency was still assessing the economic impact on its summer revenues. The algae conditions occurred as many people were looking to spend their scarce leisure dollars staying closer to home enjoying Kansas parks and lakes.

“If not for the algae, we were looking at a pretty decent year,” Kaufman said. “We’re sure hoping this year is an anomaly.”

Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are found naturally in bodies of water. They become a health concern when they bloom in massive amounts and release toxins, which can cause rashes, vomiting, nausea and other symptoms. KDHE says the toxins can be harmful to humans and their pets.

High heat and drought conditions caused abnormal levels of the toxin this summer.

Kaufman said high water levels along with the algae blooms were particularly difficult for visitors and businesses near Milford Lake in northeast Kansas. Water levels were higher much of the summer after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted regular releases of water because of flooding downstream on the Missouri River.

Tom Langer, director of the bureau of environmental health for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said the rising water meant more nutrient-rich land was now under water, providing a good food supply for the algae to grow. That combined with the weather.

“These conditions are creating situations where the blooms are so intense that you can’t enjoy the water for recreation and threatens freshwater drinking supplies,” Langer said.

While algae blooms have occurred in the past, this year’s situation raises concerns because of the frequency and intensity.

“We worry that it may be the start of a trend, but the only way to know is to monitor and analyze the situation,” Langer said. “This year is serving us notice. There are a lot of reasons why we need to look at this issue and address it.”

KDHE has issued regular advisories and warnings about bodies of water that still see dangerous levels of the algae. While the public response has been positive, Langer said there is always a danger in being “the boy who cries wolf” in raising the issue, especially if it’s not directly affecting the quality of drinking water in Kansas.

“We have raised the level of public awareness to an all-time high about this issue,” Langer said. “We have not heard from any one that this is a bad idea about what we are doing and how we going about it.”

His freedom had been months in the making, but in less than a minute — and three decades after his species was believed extinct — he was gone, unleashed into the wild to do what the endangered ferret does best: attack and kill prairie dogs.

In this Friday, Sept. 23, 2011 photo, wildlife biologist Paul Marinari, left, releases an endangered black-footed ferret into the wild, in the Badlands National Park near Interior, S.D. Watching, from left, are Bob Henderson, Don Fortenbery and Con Hillman. Conservationists say they hope to be able to remove the ferret from the endangered-species list by 2020. (AP Photo/Elijah Van Benschoten)

“Hopefully, he’s chowing down on a prairie dog now,” said Paul Marinari, a fish and wildlife biologist with the National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center.

The release was invitation-only event at the Badlands National Park, attended by about two dozen ferret fanatics, to kick off a weekend of nationwide festivities celebrating the 30th anniversary of the rediscovery of a mustelid once thought extinct.

On Sept. 26, 1981, a ranch dog in Meeteetse, Wyo., proudly presented his owners with a dead black-footed ferret. A local taxidermist identified the creature, which had been thought extinct for several years, launching a decades-long recovery effort that has seen the ferret population grow from 18 to more than 1,000 in the wild.

The ferret is still endangered, but conservationists are hopeful that by 2020, enough will be in the wild to wipe them off the list.

“We have a responsibility to restore a species that is very much a part of our North American heritage,” said Kristy Bly, a wildlife biologist with the World Wildlife Fund. The recovery of the black-footed ferret — called BFFs for short — signifies the health of the grassland ecosystem, she added.

“We’re committed to seeing this healthy, living prairie come back,” Bly said.

The ferrets’ decline is intertwined with the war waged on prairie dogs by farmers. Long considered farmland pests that compete with livestock for grass, prairie dogs have been hunted and poisoned en masse since the early 1900s.

The campaign worked. But as the prairie dogs disappeared, so, too, did their predators. Larry Haverfield, a cattle rancher in Logan County, Kan., said that loss wreaked havoc on the prairielands.

“Man poisons the prairie dogs, and that poison also kills some of the predators,” he said. “You’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

Haverfield has allowed 7,000 of his 10,000-acre farm to host prairie dogs, irking his neighbors. In 2007, his land became one of just 19 recovery sites in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the black-footed ferret, and 74 ferrets have since been released on his property.

They were born in captivity, then taken to 1,600-square-foot preconditioning pens where they’re taught to hunt and feast on prairie dogs. The ferrets spend at least 30 days in the environment before they’re released into designated reintroduction sites.

The recovery hasn’t been without hiccups: Wildlife biologists had trouble at first mating the ferrets in captivity; they mate just once a year and have small litters of kits. Also, some swaths of the re-entry sites have been hit with canine distemper and the sylvatic plague, though newly introduced ferrets are vaccinated for both diseases.

Re-entry sites also are in Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Kansas and New Mexico. Several of the states have events scheduled throughout the weekend to celebrate the rediscovery’s 30th anniversary, as do Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Washington, D.C.

George and Kay Locatelli, of Fairfield, Calif., were giddy while meeting a captive ferret on display at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center in the Badlands National Park on Saturday morning. The ferret, named Mr. Brightside after a song by The Killers, curled up cutely in his aquarium for dozens of eager visitors.

“Hopefully, they’re coming back for good,” said Kay, 67.

Captive ferrets are given names; ones to be released into the wild are identified by number only, Marinari said.

To be considered officially un-endangered, the ferrets must have 10 separate populations of at least 10 acres with at least 1,500 breeding adults. Researchers are about one-third of the way there, said Bly, the wildlife biologist.

Just how to count the growing population is tricky, acknowledged Travis Livieri, executive director of Prairie Wildlife Research. Livieri works full time counting ferrets — a job done at night with a 100-watt bulb mounted atop his truck. The light reflects green in the nocturnal ferrets’ eyes.

“Sometimes it’s like spotting a needle in a haystack,” he said late Friday on a so-called spotlighting count in the Badlands National Park. “You can be out here all night and not see a thing.”

Bly said this weekend’s nationwide ferret festivities are much deserved. It’s about more than bringing back a species, she said. It’s about saving the prairies.

“It’s one key step to recovering this prairie,” she said. “We’re celebrating huge strides in the recovery effort.”

___

On the Net: Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Program and events marking 30th anniversary: http://www.blackfootedferret.org