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Such a site is common in places like Santa Fe and Boulder, Colo., where prairie dogs, which are considered a "keystone" species, have managed to eke out an existence on patches of ground amid asphalt and concrete. In most places, prairie dogs are considered a nuisance, and typically they are poisoned, euthanized or buried in their burrows to make way for development. But in these two cities, the small, socially advanced rodents are welcome -- to a point.

Both cities have passed ordinances that require developers to move prairie dogs before construction begins if a suitable location can be found. If the animals cannot be relocated, developers can exterminate them.

So far, that has not been necessary in Santa Fe. But in Boulder, which drafted the first prairie dog ordinance in the West a decade ago, prairie dogs living on future construction sites are often exterminated. The city owns and manages more than 40,000 acres of land outside the city dedicated to open space and "greenbelt" protection, and about 5,000 of those acres have been set aside as prairie dog habitat conservation areas. But that is nowhere near enough acreage to support the thousands of prairie dogs that need to be relocated, according to relocation experts.

"Relocation is a rare event in Colorado," said Pam Wanek, a prairie dog consultant based in Boulder. "There's no land to relocate them to."

Restrictions on relocation

A big part of the problem, Wanek said, is a 1999 state law that requires prairie dogs to be relocated within the same county, unless permission for a cross-boundary relocation is granted by officials in both counties. Since land in most counties along Colorado's fast-growing Front Range is prime real estate, open space for prairie dog relocation is hard to find, said Wanek, whose company, Prairie Preserves LLC, provides relocation services.

"You're talking about Front Range acreage here, where 1 acre is going for $100,000 to $200,000, and no one wants to give that up for prairie dogs," Wanek said. "If we had the ability to relocate them to the eastern plains, you're looking at $5,000 an acre, but because of a state law, we can't do that. You have to find a site within your county."

The bill essentially prohibits large-scale conservation of the species," added Lindsey Sterling Krank, director of the Prairie Dog Coalition in Boulder.

A handful of other communities, includes Albuquerque and Taos in New Mexico and Longmont and Broomfield in Colorado, encourage relocation, but only Santa Fe and Boulder have passed ordinances, she said.

The four prairie dog species in the United States -- the black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's and Utah prairie dog -- once were found throughout the West and Great Plains but have lost about 99 percent of their historic range. The Utah prairie dog was listed when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, but the other three species are not federally protected.

Environmental groups have been fighting to force FWS to add all three species to the list for years. There has been a flurry of administrative and legal action in recent months, with FWS designating Gunnison's prairie dog -- the variety found in Santa Fe -- as a candidate species for listing in February, and environmental groups filing suit against the agency in March for failing to respond to a 2007 petition to list the black-tailed prairie dog, the species found in Boulder. FWS has also decided to reconsider the white-tailed prairie dog for listing, after conservation groups petitioned for the species' protection in 2004.

Meanwhile, prairie dog advocates in places like Santa Fe and Boulder continue to struggle to keep the 23-ounce, 12-inch-long rodents out of harm's way.

Trent Botkin of Eco Solutions, an ecologist who has been relocating prairie dogs for the city of Santa Fe for three years, said business is booming. Unlike Colorado, prairie dogs in New Mexico can be relocated pretty much anywhere outside of urban areas.

Even so, finding suitable relocation sites is difficult, even in New Mexico, one of the most rural states in the country, Botkin said. There are just two major areas where prairie dogs are relocated, both private ranches. Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, in the southern part of the state near Socorro, takes some prairie dogs, but it will only take so many, he said.

"It's almost impossible to get public land to get prairie dogs relocated to," he said. Most private landowners are reluctant to take them, he added.

Botkin believes relocation is important for the prairie dogs' long-term survival. "Prairie dogs are living on a street corner in an area that does not have enough habitat, and of course run the chance of being run over -- I've removed a lot of dead prairie dogs," he said. "We really don't have enough genetic variability there to really have a sustained population."

The Rail Runner's path

Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe-based environmental group, disagreed. She said that even if enough suitable prairie dog habitat is found outside of town, relocation is not the answer to the urban prairie dog dilemma. "If we continue to relocate our problems away, it won't be long before we look around and wonder where all of our prairie dogs went," she said.

Rosmarino said the state's efforts to relocate prairie dogs from areas in the path of the Rail Runner, a new light-rail system being constructed between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, is emblematic of the challenges in finding suitable relocation sites. The prairie dogs that were removed from several small areas within the city are slated for relocation to a 12-acre plot of land on the outskirts of town that is too small to provide adequate habitat, she said.

But Chris Blewett, project manager for Rail Runner, said the prairie dogs will be better off at the new site. "The prairie dogs came off of sites that totaled about 2 acres," he said. "So if we do relocate any of those to the 12-acre site, it's much larger than the place where they were living."

Botkin said he would like to see an agreement between New Mexico cities and the Bureau of Land Management that would allow prairie dogs to be relocated to BLM lands, which are found in abundance in New Mexico, as in many areas of the West. So far, though, BLM officials have not responded favorably to the idea, he said.

"I'd be happy to do whatever they want to do and be really nice to them and give them whatever reports they need," he said. "I can provide them with all the GIS analysis necessary related to watersheds, habitat, vegetation types, even grazing allotments. It costs a bunch of money and a bunch of manpower to do that, and I'd be willing to do that for them."

Hans Stuart, a spokesman for BLM's New Mexico state office in Santa Fe, said the agency has not been officially approached about relocating prairie dogs to BLM lands. "We certainly would consider it," he said, adding that the agency would have to conduct an environmental assessment before approving any relocation project.

Eric Ness, a spokesman for the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau, said his group would be opposed to moving prairie dogs to BLM lands, particularly grazing allotments.

"To move them from Santa Fe to BLM land, our concern would be that they're prolific and they will proliferate," he said. "These guys have tunnels all over the place. They've long been a bane for cattlemen. They're pests, and they eat grass. There's a reason cattlemen don't like having them around."

But Wanek said prairie dogs are a keystone species that provide food and habitat for more than 100 other species and bring a range of benefits to the land.

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