Boul­der will expand lethal and non­lethal prairie dog mit­i­ga­tion on irri­gat­ed agri­cul­tur­al land under a plan City Coun­cil mem­bers approved ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing in an 8–1 vote, with coun­cil mem­ber Mirabai Nagle dissenting. 

Coun­cil mem­bers vot­ed on the mea­sure about 12:30 a.m. Wednes­day as part of a pub­lic hear­ing that had to be extend­ed after dozens of peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Aug. 11 hear­ing to speak against lethal control.

The plan will increase lethal and non­lethal con­trol of prairie dogs on land man­aged by Open Space and Moun­tain Parks north of Jay Road and west of the Diagonal.

Start­ing in 2021, the plan calls for remov­ing 900 to 1,200 prairie dogs each year by relo­ca­tion and 3,000 to 6,000 prairie dogs each year by “in-bur­row humane lethal con­trol,” which uses car­bon monox­ide. The plan also calls for installing bar­ri­er fences, start­ing soil restora­tion and allow­ing agri­cul­tur­al activ­i­ties to resume that could dam­age burrows.

At the meet­ing, Nagle spoke pas­sion­ate­ly against killing prairie dogs, at times tear­ing up, and pro­posed four amend­ments to the plan that mir­rored sug­ges­tions by advo­ca­cy group Keep Boul­der Wild.

“It’s heart­break­ing that this is what we’ve degrad­ed our­selves to do. It’s heart­break­ing this is what we’re using our tax dol­lars for,” she said.

Nagle’s amend­ments includ­ed allow­ing stake­hold­ers to do a par­cel by par­cel analy­sis to deter­mine whether lethal or non­lethal con­trol would be most effec­tive and to col­lect base­line soil data; to ter­mi­nate a spe­cial use per­mit in 2022 that allows agri­cul­tur­al activ­i­ties to dam­age bur­rows and to restrict those activ­i­ties to land iden­ti­fied for lethal con­trol; for staff to con­sid­er out­side fund­ing and resources to increase relo­ca­tion efforts; and to engage in a “col­lab­o­ra­tive shared learn­ing process” about prairie dogs led by peo­ple oth­er than city staff.

Coun­cil mem­ber Adam Swet­lik also pro­posed amend­ments on annu­al project report­ing, col­lect­ing base­line soil data and reeval­u­at­ing lethal con­trol if there’s a resur­gence of plague. 

While coun­cil mem­bers debat­ed those amend­ments at length, they were ulti­mate­ly reject­ed over con­cerns that the City Coun­cil was micro­manag­ing the staff. City Coun­cil mem­bers, includ­ing May­or Sam Weaver, indi­cat­ed they were open to issu­ing some of the pro­posed amend­ments as guid­ance to city staff instead.