The Prairie Dog Issue

So, you live in the eastern part of Kansas and you don't know what all the commotion and hullabaloo there is about prairie dogs in the western part of Kansas. Check it out here. The Hays Daily News has done a good job of presenting the issue.

While driving in the Denver area recently, I noticed prairie dog colonies had infested some freeway rights-of-way areas bounded by access ramps. I asked myself, How did these creatures survive between the pavement sections? How much roadkill resulted from their presence? Did a population of carrion scavengers survive from it all? How did the prairie dogs get established there, when construction would have obliberated and restored their habitat? These and other similar questions were quite imponderable. Seeing the mess these creatures made of freeway ramp areas and using common sense, I decided that my sympathies lie with the farmers and ranchers of Kansas whose lands are swarmed over and overran by these pesky, dirty, foul rodents.

At my residence, ground squirrels or chipmunks, as some call them, occasionally disturb some plantings and create burrows around the edges of patio and walks, but their presence is not nearly as obnoxious as the ruiness effects of a colony of prairie dogs. Believe me, if the critters at my house were as bothersome as those on our country neighbors' grounds, we'd have ordinances against them and removal programs for them. And what's more, we'd spank our kids if, in response to a prairie dog pooping from its burrow, they said, "Oooh! How cute they are."