Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson
Group explores options to protect wildlife from future development
As protesters stood at Founders Parkway and Factory Shops Boulevard — waving signs and shouting at drivers to help save the prairie dogs — a few hundred yards behind them exterminators were already laying traps.
The grass-roots campaign, called Save the Castle Rock Prairie Dogs, wants to push back the construction of the Promenade at Castle Rock, at the north end of town between I-25 and U.S. Highway 85, near the Outlets at Castle Rock, until June.
That’s when the animals, many of them pregnant, could be moved. The prairie dogs are being trapped with baited cages. It is unknown how or if they are being killed at this time.
“Of course I was at the protest,” said Castle Rock resident Keith Lattimore-Walsh, one of about 40 protesters at the Feb. 24 rally. “My heart won’t allow me to do anything less than to fight for those who cannot speak.”
The controversy is part of the town’s continued conversation about growth and began when more than 20 residents spoke out against the Promenade at the Feb. 17 council meeting.
Activists said they hope snowy conditions and the slow pace of capture will give them time to find available land for relocation of the colony — about 1,000 prairie dogs.
“It’s slow, they aren’t capturing many at a time,” said Brian Ertz, board president of the activist organization the Wildlands Defense.
Alberta Development Partners, the developer behind the Promenade, could not be reached for comment about the removal of the prairie dogs, despite repeated attempts by the News-Press.
Town officials reiterated their stance that the situation is a matter of a private developer building on private land, therefore they have no jurisdiction to stop or delay construction.
This would be different if the prairie dogs were protected by state law, which they aren’t, because they are not an endangered species. [Not officially, buy they should be on the list–I challenge anyone who says prairie dogs are still common throughout the state.]
More: http://castlerocknewspress.net/stories/Activists-continue-fight-for-prairie-dogs,182035
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Coalition for American Wildbirds.
They can’t even keep the animals already listed from danger–look at the wolves. I fear that by the time human greed and human arrogance are done, there will be little left on this planet worth saving. As for the humans who are causing all the destruction–may they get what they deserve.
Actually that isn’t true – people don’t have unlimited restrictions on private land, especially if a business is going there? Something about that statement doesn’t sit well with me – I think there is something that can be done, they just don’t want to do it because they think it will bring in revenue.
or that should be ‘unlimited freedom from restriction’ on private land.
Leave them alone