Castle Rock – To hear Darlene Miller describe it, the furry, four-legged takeover began last summer when bands of beady-eyed prairie dogs clawed their way through dried fields near her Castle Rock home and dug into her backyard flower beds.
At first, the 73-year-old land developer admits, the little yappers were kind of cute. But as development plowed across this Douglas County town and continued to move wildlife into residential neighborhoods, Miller reached a different conclusion.
“Basically,” she says, “I had to get rid of them.”
But in Castle Rock, where the entire town was designated as a wildlife sanctuary, getting rid of the critters – or any critter, for that matter – was easier said than done.
“You had to get all sorts of permission just to kill a varmint,” she says. “It didn’t seem right.”
So last year, with the help of homeowners in her 35-home Patio Plus development near the eastern part of town, Miller launched a crusade to eliminate the town’s sanctuary status – perhaps one of the most stringent animal-protection laws in the state.
And in April, with little opposition, the town’s council changed its wildlife ordinance.
The decision, which reversed part of a 1994 Castle Rock law creating a sanctuary that prohibited killing or annoying virtually any native animal without town approval, could make it easier for developers to clear non endangered wildlife off land.
Proponents of the change say they eliminated an outdated and cumbersome law that restricted property owners’ rights with frivolous rules that included restrictions on the euthanasia of family pets.
Critics say the law reversal is an example of small government inviting more development and promoting wildlife as problematic to the suburban lifestyle.
“Why can’t we just live with wildlife, instead of always trying to push it away?” asks Kathleen Neubauer, 39, a Castle Rock resident who unsuccessfully fought the sanctuary change.
David Crawford, executive director of Rocky Mountain Animal Defense in Boulder, said, “People live in Colorado because of its wild places, and we’re smack dab in the middle of it on the Front Range. The loss of more habitat means a loss in the quality of our lives.”
Before April’s ordinance change, town police officers often handled wildlife complaints.
But “it didn’t seem too practical,” says police Chief Tony Lane, who helped rewrite Castle Rock’s new wildlife ordinance, which now matches town animal laws with less-restrictive state requirements. “If there was a rattlesnake in a yard, we had to take care of it. If a skunk was under a porch, we handled it.”
In theory, anyone caught violating the old ordinance risked a maximum $1,000 fine and one year in jail.
Not that the law was enforced.
While the ordinance change sparked some debate, it seems few people knew the town was a sanctuary in the first place. No one could recall the last time a fine or jail time was handed out.
Though the sanctuary status is gone, state and federal wildlife laws that protect endangered or threatened species still apply and town officials say it still is illegal to shoot or poison animals in Castle Rock.
But Casey Westbrook, a district wildlife manager with the state’s Division of Wildlife, worries that some residents won’t learn the new laws.
“My biggest concern is that people read headlines, don’t understand the full story and think they can kill anything on their land,” Westbrook says. “You still have to respect wildlife.”
For its part, Castle Rock is considering designating all or portions of the town’s 1,300 acres of open space as wildlife sanctuaries. A decision could come next year.
In the meantime, Miller, the woman who helped change the animal law, says she is trying to coexist with the prairie dogs.
But the truce may be short- lived.
Last month, Miller spotted one in her flowers. And she saw another prairie dog scurry across her street.
“You yell at them, and they take off running,” Miller says. “Then they come right back. They always come back.”
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
