Centennial State News

Boulder officials recently received an update on the status of prairie dogs in the city.

Andy Pelster, agriculture and water stewardship senior manager at Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP), provided the update.

Boulder County implemented a plan to manage the prairie dog habitat element of grassland and shrubland in 1999. The document was updated in February.

"We certainly want to conserve native habitats and the wildlife that inhabit them, but we're also trying to balance that with providing agricultural land for local producers to grow food and livestock on,” Pelster said.

The county uses the plan to strive to "achieve wildlife habitat protection goals while also preserving agriculture and maintaining good neighbor relations."

Black-tailed prairie dogs are medium-sized ground squirrels, according to the city of Boulder's website. They live in underground burrows in a grassland habitat. The animals can alter the grasslands due to burrowing and grazing on vegetation. They were plentiful in the central plains at one point, but extermination and loss of habitat resulted in declining populations. They currently reside on OSMP grasslands and areas such as irrigated agricultural lands. The prairie dog population is at its highest level on some of these lands since the department began tracking its colonies in 1996.

Bolder County relocated more than 500 prairie dogs to a colony in Waneka's southern grasslands this year, according to Daily Camera.

"We only relocate prairie dogs on our landscape into spots where they have been recorded in the past," Pelster told the publication. "We're not trying to make new habitat for prairie dogs. We're only trying to put them back where they have chosen to occupy the land in the past."