The Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife has denied an application from the city of Boulder to move up to 300 prairie dogs from Foothills Community Park to an open space site in Gunbarrel, effectively putting an end to a five-year battle over the rodents.
In a letter sent to the city on Friday, state wildlife officials wrote that they denied Boulder’s application to move the prairie dogs to the Richardson II open space site because the plan failed to adequately mitigate neighbors’ concerns about the colony’s eventual expansion into the nearby neighborhood.
The city has been working to relocate the 39-acre colony since 2006, when the City Council passed the prairie dog component of the city’s Urban Wildlife Management Plan, which lists the population as one of six slated for “near-term removal.”
News of the denied relocation permit has elated the more than 100 residents in Gunbarrel who banded together in recent months to oppose the city’s relocation plan.
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