A copy of the Division of Wildlife’s letter to the City of Boulder can be downloaded by clicking this link.

CCG would also like to thank the entire Gunbarrel, Longmont, Niwot and Boulder communities who supported this effort. We hope you too will remain engaged in the debate that will no doubt follow on Boulder’s prairie dog policies. The core issues need to be addressed. Today’s ruling is by no means an end, simply an opportunity to constructively engage the City to ensure our community’s interests are not ignored in the future as they have been this year.

Finally, CCG would like to acknowledge and thank State Representative Dickey Lee Hullinghorst for her unwavering support of the Gunbarrel community in opposing the City’s relocation plans. Rep. Hullinghorst’s leadership should be held up as an example to other representatives. The people elect representatives so they can have a voice in the decision making process and so their fundamental rights will be protected. When this voice goes silent, the electorate seek new representation.

Imagine you were a resident in a housing project that had rats.  You didn’t particularly care for the rats; they chewed the
upholstery and you’d heard they carried diseases.  However, no one had got sick yet from the rats, so you just accepted
them as part of life.

Now imagine that the housing authority came to your building and informed you that the neighborhood up the street wanted
to get rid of their rats.  They were chewing the upholstery; therefore, the rats were going to be captured and deposited
in your building.  You already have rats anyway; what’s the difference? the housing authority asked.

Is it the rats’ fault that they chew the upholstery? No. Do the rats have a right to live, just like every other creature? Some would say so.
But imagine how you would feel, now with twice as many rats in your walls so that the other neighborhood could live a rat-free life!

What is the difference between this parable and what is currently going on with the prairie dog relocation in our
area?  Relocating possibly disease-ridden rats into our homes sounds unreasonable; relocating just as possibly disease-ridden
prairie dogs, to some people, seems to make sense.  But just because they are cute does not change the reality of the situation.
Especially now, with plague confirmed in Boulder in a dead squirrel and a housecat, we need to be realistic in our priorities.

The problem is going to end up, literally, in our back yard, and ride in on our pets to sleep at our children’s feet.

Jennifer Hronkin, MD
Gunbarrel

The City’s prairie dog relocation application is here:

Cover Letter | Application | Alternative Sending Sites | Supplemental Information | Public Comment [not yet released contact Val Matheson]

Screen capture of City of Boulder's relocation permit application, submitted to the Colorado Division of Wildlife on 6/7/2011.

The FINAL DECISION IS NOW UP TO YOU. If you DO NOT WANT PRAIRIE DOGS RELOCATED TO GUNBARREL YOU NEED TO ACT:

1. Email the Division of Wildlife and YOUR government representatives and let them know your opposition.

Kristin Cannon, District  Wildlife Manager @ Division of Wildlife:  kristin.cannon@state.co.us

Larry Rogstadt, Area Wildlife Manager @ Division of Wildlife:  larry.rogstadt@state.co.us

Steve Yamashita – Northeast Regional Manager @ Division of Wildlife: steve.yamashita@state.co.us

Tom Remmington – Director of Colorado Division of Wildlife: tom.remmington@state.co.us

Dickey Lee Hullinghorst – State Rep. for Gunbarrel / Niwot:  dl.hullinghorst.house@state.co.us

Rollie Heath – State Senator for Gunbarrel: rollie.heath.senate@state.co.us

Note: DOW Area Manager, Larry Rogstadt, has asked that all correspondence to DOW go to Kristin Cannon only. We understand the agency’s concerns about streamlining correspondence. However, we also respect our members’ rights to petition their government. The choice is yours to make.

2. Email the County Commissioners and tell them to stand up and be a voice for Gunbarrel, not a lapdog for the City of Boulder.

commissioners@bouldercounty.org

3. Attend the County Commissioners’ Meeting on Monday, June 13 at 6:00PM in Heatherwood at the St. Mary Magdalen Church, 4775 Cambridge Drive.

4. Write letters to the editor, call your local radio, TV stations and newspapers, etc. and let them know that your voice is being silenced.

According to one resident of the Heatherwood sub-division of Gunbarrel, “I had a suspicion there was more than meets the eye in the City’s reduction in the number of prairie dogs to be relocated from 500 to 300. It sounds to me like that colony is on the front end of a plague event. The City better not try to pass that disease off to our community!”

Boulder County public health officials recommend the following precautions to reduce the likelihood of being exposed to plague:

• AVOID FLEAS! Protect pets with flea powder, and keep pets on a leash and out of wild rodent habitats.
• STAY OUT of areas that wild rodents inhabit.  If you enter areas with wild rodents, wear insect repellent and tuck your pants cuffs into your socks to prevent flea bites.
• AVOID all contact with wild rodents, including squirrels; do not feed or handle them.
• NEVER TOUCH sick or dead animals with your bare hands.  Use a long-handled shovel to place them in a garbage bag, and then place the bag in an outdoor garbage can.
• PREVENT rodent infestations around your house.  Clear plants and materials away from outside walls, reduce access to food items, and set traps.
• TREAT known rodent sites around your home with flea powder or a suitable insecticide.

Despite being dismissed as alarmist by one City Council member, the risks posed by plague are very serious. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) even whey medical intervention occurs early, plague carries up to a 20% mortality rate. Unchecked with sophisticated medical intervention, plague can kill up to 90% of those infected.

Macon Cowles - Home Phone: 303-638-6884 cowles.bouldercouncil@gmail.com Term Expires: November, 2013

on June 3, 2011 before arrogantly and incorrectly dismissing the concerns of a Concerned Citizens of Gunbarrel (CCG) member on Friday evening.

Concerned citizen, Larry Buckendorf, a grandfather of 13, retired IBM executive and +30 year resident of Gunbarrel sent an email to several government officials, including Mr. Cowles. The letter expressed concerns Buckendorf felt after learning of the City’s confirmation of multiple confirmed Plague cases within 2 miles of the site from which prairie dogs are scheduled to be relocated from Boulder to Gunbarrel. Based on the City of Boulder’s own prairie dog studies, this places the entire “sending” colony within the footprint of a confirmed plague event, thus significantly increasing the risk to the Gunbarrel community.

Using “reply to all” to address his comments to numerous elected officials Mr. Cowles sent the following reply to Buckendorf:

“If you want to talk to us about this, get your facts straight. Otherwise people will write you off as an alarmist.” Macon Cowles (303)638-6884 Sent from an iPhone – Friday June 3, 2011 @ 10:24PM.

Council Member Cowles did not respond to Mr. Buckendorf’s subsequent request seeking clarification on which facts he believed to be incorrect. We also attempted to contact Mr. Cowles for comment prior to publishing this story, but he was unavailable and did not return our call.

• AVOID FLEAS! Protect pets with flea powder, and keep pets on a leash and out of wild rodent habitats.
• STAY OUT of areas that wild rodents inhabit.  If you enter areas with wild rodents, wear insect repellent and tuck your pants cuffs into your socks to prevent flea bites.
• AVOID all contact with wild rodents, including squirrels; do not feed or handle them.
• NEVER TOUCH sick or dead animals with your bare hands.  Use a long-handled shovel to place them in a garbage bag, and then place the bag in an outdoor garbage can.
• PREVENT rodent infestations around your house.  Clear plants and materials away from outside walls, reduce access to food items, and set traps.
• TREAT known rodent sites around your home with flea powder or a suitable insecticide.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, plague poses a very serious life-threatening risk to humans. Death rates in the United States are still 10-20% for cases caught early. Victims who contracts plague and who do not seek health care intervention face up to  a 90% likelihood of death.

Mr. Cowles, for the record…being worried about that kind of risk being purposefully introduced to your neighborhood is not being alarmist.

A comprehensive review of the City’s plan prepared by members of Concerned Citizens of Gunbarrel (CCG) and its advisers can be accessed by clicking this link.

Boulder’s mitigation plan highlights:

1. City will relocate “only” 300 prairie dogs instead of the originally estimated 500. This reduction is not in response to community concerns. There are only three possible reasons for this reduction: the City has a 40% margin of error in its prairie dog population counts, the City never intended to relocate 500 and presented that number only as a red-herring, or the newly down-scaled population figures indicate the “sending site,” Foothills Park, may be in the early stage of a plague event.

2. City proposed a self-described “experiment” in the form of a 12-16 foot-tall hay-bale wall dividing the Richardson II property and the 37 property owners immediately to the west. This planned wall of hay would require special permitting form the County, would require a safe-wildlife passage area, will not meet County building code standards for wind load durability in 110-mph gusts , will

This one year old, 13-foot tall hay-bale wall in Boulder County is typical of the decay and complete lack of structural integrity of the type of structures the City proposed in its mitigation plan. This type of structure is dangerous and quickly becomes infested with rats, mice, other rodents and rabbits. Further, as the bales break apart their hay is spread great distances by the wind.

completely obstruct the views of 37 private residences and will exacerbate the health hazards of the relocation due to additional rodent infestation in the hay (increased plague risk) and structural stability issues of the tall, heavy hay structure. The hay-bale wall also seems to ignore the obvious problem that prairie dogs burrow and tunnel – they don’t jump or climb.

3. $2,000 Annual budget for “passive relocation technicians.” This equates to approximately 45 minutes per day for a single person to travel to the site, monitor a 150 acre site with a 11.000-foot perimeter, perform “shoo-ing” of errant prairie dogs, and travel from the site.  Really?

4. Using a 50-foot buffer of existing grasses to prevent prairie dog migration to private property.  Really?

5.  Adding raptor perches to the site – despite its own conclusions in the Grasslands Plan that such perches don’t attract raptors in such areas as the birds are sensitive to human disturbance and will therefore not provide adequate population control to prevent colony expansion.

6. Bubonic Plague education and protection for the community will be completed with signs on the nearby trail.

7. Targeted relocation – the City will graciously only relocate the prairie dogs to footprint of previous prairie dog colonies. Approximately 90% of the land was covered with prairie dogs prior to the latest plague event in 2007/8.

Basically it is similar to the story of Australian fauna that was partially destroyed when newcomers from other countries brought with them animals from other parts of the world and who aggressively eliminated the food supply for Australian native animals who went extinct.

Our story is on much smaller scale but it is also very similar. Prairie dogs have their place in nature but other animals and plants do to, and taking prairie dogs from one habitat to the other disrupts nature balance in the place where they are relocated. Look at all this absolutely bold and dry patches of land that prairie dogs occupy. It’s waste land.

I do not want my kids to get plague either. It also brings down the value of our houses in the community. If this happens I am pretty sure all the officials who voted for the relocation would never get my vote or a vote of anyone in Gunbarrel, it is a big part of Boulder voter base.

I will never vote for any raise of an open space tax, I can promise you that. City of Boulder is simply abusing the power and acting in favor of a Prairie Dog Coalition not Boulder population at least not population of Gunbarrel area possibly considering them a second rate citizens, who pay taxes but whose interests are not taken into account.

-Elena K.

The introduction of prairie dogs will disrupt the lives of anyone living in the adjacent neighborhoods and people utilizing the open space area.  The open space area will be ruined with burrows and become a hazard for hikers, runners, bikers, and horse riders.

Has the City considered the legal ramifications if they are responsible for relocating prairie dogs so close to a residential neighborhood and someone becomes infected with the plague?  Legal battles could cost the City millions.

Wake up Boulder.  Prairie dogs do NOT belong in residential and recreational areas.

- Barb L.

As a member of the Concerned Citizens of Gunbarrel I thank you for the opportunity for members to speak before the Council.  In the past few weeks we have been characterized as “acting like children” to “behaving like an unruly mob”. As you witnessed we are neither. A special thank you to Council Member KC Becker  for your  actions regarding the concerns of the Gunbarrel and Heatherwood residents  on the Prairie Dog Relocation Plan to Richardson II.

I am disappointed by the decision of the Council. Of course I would favor no relocation to Richarson II to allow the current population to expand.  However, a delay of one year in application to CDOW would allow for the alternative site in South Boulder to be available following a two year moratorium on relocation due to plague in the past.

It also appears two documents are batted about in this discussion: the 2006 Urban Wildlife Management Plan and 2010 “Grassland Plan”.  I was led to believe the Grassland Plan is the current working document for Prairie Dog Management.

According to the “Grassland Plan” the Richardson II is a PCA, prairie dog conservancy area. This means the prairie dogs relocated to Richardson II and their progeny CANNOT BE REMOVED. All of you were members of Council when this document was approved in June, 2010. With no successful mitigation known except “shooing”, what will that population look like in two or three years?  The City of Boulder is merely kicking the can down the road.  Perhaps it will then be the problem of new Council Members and new OSMP staff.

Most worrisome to me is conflicting information about which colony at Foothills Community Park is being relocated.  My understanding is that the colony which is at least three football fields away from the soccer fields is NOT the group being relocated.  A second colony is the one slated for removal.  The reason given is need to build additional multiuse fields. So the prairie dogs are infringing on theoretical athletic fields.

The remarks from Jane Brautigam, City Manager, in the Hotline Notes echo the dichotomy of the arguments.  By relocating these animals the City and the Staff of OSMP admit that mitigation does not work at Foothills but suggest it will at Richardson II. We are talking about wild animals.  Wild animals in an urban environment. The natural predators that visit our area are a joyous sight. The problem is we don’t have enough and never will in such an urban area.  The saddest fact to me is that the only successful tool for management is the sporadic occurrence of the plague. Staff informed me that an animal infected with plague can take 2-3 days to die.

The City Manager suggests the decline in population in the Richardson colony in 2008 was a suspected plague outbreak? Suspected?  Surely an animal or two or fleas were sent to the infectious disease lab in Fort Collins or a similar facility to confirm  the cause of the die off and before all those signs were posted along the Cottontail Trail alerting folks they were traveling in a plague area.

In closing I respectfully request Council Members review the following City of Boulder website: http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1691&Itemid=1605

Mary A.
Gunbarrel Estates