by Hayden Seder
Unbeknownst to most residents of Grand Junction, there is a whole world revolving around the removal of prairie dogs from empty land in town, typically land owned by a business or purchased by a developer that wants to build on the land. As current laws stand, business owners and developers are not required to humanely remove any prairie dogs, but if they do, there’s only one organization in town up to the task: the Sierra Club.
Prairie dogs fall within a sort of “gray area” of animals in terms of being pesky critters. Colorado Fish and Wildlife won’t deal with them and neither will animal control. Pest control will, but not humanely: Using pressurized exhaust, they simply poison the creatures. Many landowners simply shoot the animals or bulldoze over them.
For those who wish to attempt to get rid of the prairie dogs humanely, they’ll learn by word of mouth that the local chapter of the Sierra Club is experienced in this area, and one member in particular: Janet Wyatt.
I met Janet after receiving an email from the Sierra Club looking for volunteers to help humanely remove 80 prairie dogs from a lot adjacent to a local bar/restaurant, which was desperate to be rid of the creatures, who were coming right up to the business’s doors. Looking out over the lot at 10 a.m. one weekday morning, I could see numerous prairie dogs, their heads poking out of the ground, some standing around and some skittering around and playing, though if a hawk swooped down or perched from a nearby tree, eyeing its prey, they retreated into their burrows.
Janet has no wildlife biology background or any other education that makes her well suited to prairie dog removal; she was simply taught how to humanely remove them by a local man, who for health reasons has stepped back from prairie dog relocation, and cares enough to put in numerous hours each day during a relocation.
Humanely removing prairie dogs is a very passive process, with cages baited with raw peanuts and corn simply laid out in the lot, awaiting a prairie dog to trigger the cage closure and trap one or two at a time. On the day I first visited the lot, the traps had been out for several days but had yet to trap any prairie dogs. There are only a handful of cages at the Sierra Club’s disposal, and the lot is large, so the cages have to be moved throughout to attempt to get all the animals.
While Colorado Fish and Wildlife won’t remove the prairie dogs themselves, they do have extensive rules for how the Sierra Club can remove them, including that when traps are baited, someone must be there at all times to monitor the cages, hence the need for volunteers to help with monitoring over the course of a day.
Once a prairie dog is trapped, they are relocated to land that the Forest Service and BLM have okayed the Sierra Club to release them, located about a 50-minute drive from the lot. Janet and her volunteers assessed whether there were enough empty burrows for the number of prairie dogs to be released and didn’t find enough, so using pickaxes to dig into the hard soil, they created fifteen artificial burrows.
To help cover the cost of food for bait, gas to get to the land, and cages, the Sierra Club received a grant from D.E.A.R., Desert Ecosystem Analysis and Restoration. But mostly, the prairie dog relocation process depends entirely on the good intentions of volunteers like Janet.
The Sierra Club’s passive methods not only protect those involved from getting bitten by the creatures but put less stress on the prairie dogs as well. In other areas, groups use the “soap method,” or flushing, which involves using a water tank with an attached pump to deliver soapy, foamy water into the burrows, flushing the prairie dogs out, where they are then captured by hand or net and put into cages.
Many areas have local ordinances that require developers to make a good-faith effort to humanely remove the prairie dogs from a property before resorting to other methods. Janet has tried to get a similar ordinance passed in Grand Junction, but to no avail.
In the first week of this particular relocation project, only a few prairie dogs were caught, but as of June 4, the Sierra Club has successfully caught and relocated 27.
For prairie dog relocation services, Janet can be contacted at janetwyatt@comcast.net
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