Our daughter and her family live in the N Denver suburb of Thornton, adjacent to the suburban community of Westminster, which is adjacent to Broomfield. Driving around the area, I am struck by prairie dog towns on seemingly every piece of vacant land. I think everyone knows, the Front Range of Colorado is, and has been, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. Being the sensitive environmentalists these city governments are, there are ordinances all over metro Denver protecting these dog towns. Most ordinances are essentially “no net loss of habitat” laws. This means that if a given track of land, with a development plan, has dogs on it, they must be relocated to similar habitat. Companies have sprung up in the Denver area that vacuum up (literally) prairie dogs and moved them around like chess pieces on a board. In Broomfield, many of the relocated prairie dogs have found their way to the Great Western Reservoir Open Space; there are a lot of dogs there. Repeating though, there are a lot of dogs in Westminster, Commerce City, and other places in suburban Denver.

Environmentalists have wanted to “list” the Black-tailed prairie dog for years. Many of us in natural resource management think it’s asinine to even consider ESA listing for a prey species that is highly susceptible to mass die offs from “the plague:”
NOTE: The strain of plague that kills off prairie dogs is “sylvatic” plague. Humans, in turn, can contract one of three strains of plague: bubonic, pneumonic, or septicemic. Maybe an epidemiologist in the Forum can shed some light on the transition from sylvatic plague in dogs to bubonic (or the others) in humans.

In its natural habitat (read “not urban”), prairie dogs have a whole host of predators, including, burrowing owls, snakes, hawks, coyotes, etc. etc. In town, those are absent and plague infestations appear to be more prevalent. They also have an impact on the human population. Here’s an example:

quote:

MLS team cancels fireworks display because of, uh, plague-infested fleas in prairie dog colonies

WaPo article

Here’s another article on Broomfield’s Open Space.
Link

I just think the story of urban prairie dogs is like a parable for the whole issue of misguided attempts by the left (especially) to attempt to intervene in the realms of both growth and ecosystems. You might do little further research. Look for “urban prairie dogs,” or something like that. Interesting reading.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TMats,

There is a Colorado State Park near where I live, basically on the Southern edge of a suburban residential and business area, with a thriving Prairie Dog population. It's common for rattle snakes to be found in the same area as they will feed on them.

There was a news story that broke a couple years ago in which a woman living in one of the Denver suburbs near an open space was "saving" Prairie Dogs and her garage was filled with them. I'm not sure but I believe she had hundreds of them. At some point either the State or County government officials moved in and seized her Pdogs for relocation.

The same asinine phenomenon can be seen with other animals. County and City parks are overun with Canada geese, to the point where goose poop saturates not only the grass in these parks but the walking paths and sidewalks, not to mention some nearby road ways. I believe it was the U.S Ag department that granted a hunting waiver and allowed some officials to humanely capture a few thousand geese from one or two parks (leaving thousands more behind), and the geese were sent to a processing center where they were killed, processed, and given to either the homeless or otherwise needy people. The public outcry from some Denver based geese advocacy group was so loud that the program was discontinued, although supposedly the agreed upon permitted number of geese collected had already been reached for the year.

A similar problem with coyote populations increasing in suburban open areas is also occurring...and the only good news on this front is that the coyotes sometimes feed on local resident's small dogs and cats so they tend not to get as much support from the animal rights activists...but even in this case there are groups protesting the hunting or trapping of suburban coyotes.

I consider myself an outdoor lover and one who enjoys wildlife, as well as a hunter and angler. I have no wish to see most species eradicated, but we do them no service by allowing their populations to remain so close to human populations. When their natural enemies and population controlling factors are removed or reduced and their populations explode in numbers the humane thing to do, and the common sense thing to do, is to eliminate them from the immediate area. No good can come from having their populations so close to human ones for either group, no matter how enjoyable it may be to watch nature from your backyard.

It is beyond ridiculous to consider listing Prairie Dogs as a protected species.

I lived on Arapaho 15 years ago and could see a couple hundred of them across the street in a large grassy dusty lot.

I would have thought the coyotes would have thinned them out,
they were almost as prevalent

Coyotes are certainly efficient predators, but it’s difficult for them to have a big impact on populations. Prairie dogs have a watch/warning system that would make it difficult for coyotes to take more than those on the fringes who wander too far from their holes. Most effective killers are probably black-footed ferrets—which ARE listed. They have been successfully re-introduced into several large dog towns where all the boxes can be checked.

The geese problem around the business facilities is taken care of with Border Collies.

They pay someone to stop by several times a week and chase the geese off. After a while, the geese take up residences someplace else.

With the deer problems in the parks, they have the police with night scopes shoot the deer and give them to the soup kitchens. This usually happens once a year.

If I understand correctly, and that is a big if, sylvatic plague occurs in wildlife, and urban plague occurs in humans and domestic animals. It's the same bacterium, Yersinia pests. This is the bug that causes bubonic, septicemic, and pneumatic plagues. The sylvatic or urban designation is where in the animal kingdom the disease occurs.

I grew up at 106th and Wadsworth. (AKA Old Wadsworth for some). I left home in June 1977, and my parents died in 2014.
During the period 1959-1977, I had NEVER seen a prairie dog in the area between Arvada and Broomfield.
I wonder why we didn't have those given that there was so many acres of fields?
My guess is that we had dogs and coyotes running around those fields. We had livestock on those fields, or alfalfa growing, so the little critters just didn't hang around.
I really don't know why they have invaded the Denver metro area.

I think I may possibly have some close to my property. Random mounds of dirt, but no apparent holes.

How does one persuade the little buggers to go find a new home????

quote:

Originally posted by HighZonie:
I think I may possibly have some close to my property. Random mounds of dirt, but no apparent holes.

Sounds more like pocket gophers. The move prodigious amounts of dirt, and plug their holes. Because they are such efficient diggers, they can plug/unplug a hole in seconds. You cannot use any kind of gas to kill them because once they sense it, they just close off that section of tunnel. We have them here. The typical sign is a huge mound of dirt, but no apparent hole. Sometimes they plug them a bit deeper, and you can see the beginning of the hole.

So,.................

quote:

How does one persuade the little buggers to go find a new home????

I just found this: The road flare trick.

Has anyone done this? Did it work?

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9gAsXbmyZ0

Here is an upgrade modification of the smoke out trick:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kUy557_mvE

My grandfather used to cure moles with a quarter stick of dynamite, but I hear that is frowned on these days. Least that's what he said.

quote:

Originally posted by HighZonie:
So,.................

quote:

How does one persuade the little buggers to go find a new home????

Oxy-acetylene torch. Don’t light it and let it seep down the holes for a bit. Shut off gas and move tanks. Stand back a ways and pitch a lit road flare to the hole.
Ground will move. If the plugged the hole, sometimes the pressure will push past the plug and kill them in ground.
Good luck.