Hays ? A Kansas Court of Appeals panel has let stand a restraining order that limits prairie dog poisoning.

The appeals panel affirmed a judge’s decision to allow a restraining order that effectively limits any poisoning of prairie dogs to a 90-foot barrier around the nearly 10,000-acre complex where black footed ferrets have been reintroduced in western Kansas.

The appeals panel decision, issued Friday, turns aside Logan County’s request to let it poison prairie dogs where endangered black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced.

The Hays Daily News reports that the three-judge Appeals Court panel said the Endangered Species Act doesn’t allow the county to eradicate all prairie dogs in the complex because it would destroy the food supply and habitat of the black-footed ferret, which is federally protected.