ONE OF THE BIGGEST SCANDALS IN OUR MIDST

As suggested in the Longmont Times-Call’s call-in, one way to solve the prairie dog problem at Longmont’s Vance Brand Municipal Airport without exterminating them might be to trap them and see how many of the caring people who show up at these public hearings step forward to take them home to keep in their own backyards.

But because these cute little rodents are known carriers of the dreaded bubonic plague through infestation of fleas, that’s not a good idea. And due to their tunneling ability, of course, building fences and putting up plastic barriers to control them are usually a waste of time and money. Prairie dogs not only attract coyotes, which feed on them, but share their burrows with rattlesnakes.

So what can be done to negate their deleterious effect on properties such as public golf courses, park lawns, public airports and the like? You don’t see prairie dog burrows next to DIA runways, do you, or on the County Courthouse lawn.

Relocation is problematic if not impossible, and public officials must share the blame for neglecting this humane option. While it is true that mankind is encroaching on their habitat, it is also true that Boulder County has accumulated almost 94,000 acres of open space (the city of Longmont also owns hundreds of acres) without setting aside any part of it for relocating and accommodating these unwanted rodents. This is a public scandal in itself, a governmental flaw that the press simply ignores.

Early-on, metro-area counties tried exporting their prairie dogs to rural counties and got away with it for a while – until farmers and ranchers finally rose up and said no, we already have too many and we do not want yours too. Not only do these rapidly multiplying rodents feed on cash crops, they destroy scarce ground-covering by pulling grass out by the roots when they feed (much like grazing sheep do, a practice that triggered early Colorado settlers to gunfights between cattlemen and sheepmen).

There are places for these eco-important rodents to exist in peace in Boulder County, and I think people who hammer officials such as those at Longmont’s airport who find that they do not have much choice except extermination need to take their harassing complaints directly to the Boulder County Commissioners and the Longmont City Council, whose members do have the power and authority to set aside some open space land to mitigate this aggravating problem. Fair enough?
P.