In tug-of-war for space, prairie dogs losing fight

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 25, 2006 at midnight

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BOULDER - It's been a bad few weeks for prairie dogs and their human champions.

The Colorado Wildlife Commission declined to give the black-tailed prairie dog year-round protection from being shot, instead giving them safe harbor on public lands only between March 1 and June 14.

At the same meeting, the commission approved use of a device known as the "Rodenator," which injects oxygen and propane into prairie dog holes, detonates the mixture and kills the animals within a minute.

Those decisions came on the heels of the Boulder City Council approving a plan that OKs the killing of some prairie dogs and doesn't allot much money for prairie dog barriers that would keep the animals away from the humans annoyed by them.

"Instead of creating a wonderful example of coexistence between people, wildlife and recreation, they said, 'We don't want to think about a long-term solution, we're just going to kill them and move on,' " said Lindsey Sterling Krank, director of the Boulder-based Prairie Dog Coalition.

Depending on the point of view, prairie dogs are either cute, resourceful creatures that give shelter to burrowing owls and fine meals to coyotes, hawks and other prairie predators, or they're disease-ridden varmints that destroy grasslands and lawns and burrow holes that are the perfect size for spraining ankles.

The first pioneers

Before there were farms, ranches and subdivisions out West, there were prairie dogs. Early explorers reported prairie dog towns and colonies stretching 100 square miles.

Now, there are 2.5 million people on the Front Range, and there still are hundreds of thousands of prairie dogs - competing for shrinking habitat, burrowing along base paths in Little League parks, into the finely manicured lawns of office buildings and the frontyards of homes.

It doesn't have to be so, Krank said.

Prairie dogs get up on their hind legs, stretch their 12-inch height and look around for predators and safe havens. If they can't see beyond a fence or barrier, they won't make new homes there - it's too risky.

So, if Front Range communities would build aesthetically pleasing fences - say, 4 feet above the ground and 3 feet under, they could regulate which way prairie dogs roam, Krank said.

Homeowners themselves can plant shrubs to keep prairie dogs out, said Con Slobodchikoff, a biologist at Northern Arizona University. "They're very uncomfortable anywhere where they can't see" danger, he said of the animals.

While Boulder has been getting most of the recent attention in the prairie dog wars, officials are asking for some slack, noting that Boulder and Boulder County have set aside more open space land - some 5,000 acres - for protected prairie dog habitat than any other entity in the state.

Trouble is, as development edges onto open space, prairie dogs migrate to places they aren't wanted.

Good fences

Foothills Community Park in north Boulder has a state-of- the-art corrugated metal fence to keep prairie dogs away from recreation fields, Krank said.

But money ran out and the Boulder City Council declined to spend an additional $30,000 to $50,000 to extend the fence far enough to keep the prairie dogs completely away from people, Krank said.

As she pointed to a new burrow hole, just a few feet away from where the fence stops, she said that decision was penny wise but pound foolish.

Prairie dogs are essential to the prairie ecosystem, which keeps nature alive and alluring to human emigres, Krank said.

Understanding prairie dogs

Prairie dogs are more intelligent and complex than they may appear, say those who study them.

Slobodchikoff has set up tape recorders and video cameras in prairie dog colonies and sent volunteers wearing different colored clothing through the towns.

A human in a blue shirt will elicit a slightly different alarm call from the animals than a human in a green shirt, he said.

The sounds, Slobodchikoff said, can communicate whether the human is tall or short and how fast the person is going.

"Prairie dog communication is probably the most sophisticated ever described in the animal kingdom," he said.

If it's a human, the signal goes out to run for a burrow and dive in. That's because for hundreds of years American Indians with bows and farmers and ranchers with rifles have shot prairie dogs from a distance.

If it's a coyote, the message is to run to the lip of the burrow but then turn around to see where the coyote is heading. Coyotes need to get close to kill and have been known to sit for an hour at the mouth of a burrow waiting for a prairie dog to peek its head out.

All that astonishing communication should be enough to convince homeowners that the entertainment value alone is worth a few holes in their lawns - or if not in their lawns - in the open space nearby, Slobodchikoff and Krank say.

But there's also plague, Krank admits, and while fleas are the carriers, prairie dogs are the scapegoats, even though they die so quickly from the plague that they rarely get a chance to spread it to another species. Still, people worry about their dogs and cats.

Animals vs. recreation

Krank hopes Boulder will get behind an "Adopt-a-Barrier" program, similar to the "Adopt-a-Road" program in which companies and nonprofit groups agree to maintain the integrity of the barriers.

A draft report last month on managing prairie dogs within Boulder city limits stated that the city hasn't been proactive in preventing conflicts between the animals and humans.

Boulder City Manager Frank Bruno said the problem is that Boulder hasn't expanded much outward in 10 years but has filled in much of the space within its 25 square miles of urban landscape.

The most pressing problem is at the ball fields at Tom Watson Park, where some 300 prairie dogs are making it impossible for kids to play ball.

"Over time, you lose the field, and all of a sudden your million-dollar asset is gone," Bruno said.

Valmont City Park would be next on the list for possible lethal means.

Keep Boulder Wild says the plan could mean that 6,200 prairie dogs - the majority of those within the city limits, would be killed.

"I don't believe anyone has said that prairie dogs are going to meet a particular fate," said Mark Gershman, environmental specialist for Boulder's Open Space and Mountain Parks.

Gershman said the city has installed nine miles of prairie dog barriers. While they work well in certain areas, they are expensive and tend also to keep out snakes and other small animals that make up a complete prairie ecosystem, he said.

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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