For these dogs, time to 'kill them all'

Just when is a dog not a canine?

It may sound like one of those trick questions such as: Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? It’s not that complicated.

The dog I’m referring to is the dreaded, pesky, rodent called the prairie dog. These furry little annoying characters reared their ugly heads again this week in a story in The News by staff writer David Grieder.

At issue is the latest “town” of prairie dogs near Clovis Community College. Accusations falsely accused the folks at CCC of recently “murdering” all of the native prairie dogs near campus. According to CCC President Becky Rowley, the last time any extermination efforts took place was several months ago.

Prairie dogs have been a problematic issue at other places in Clovis, namely Potter Park, Ned Houk Park and the Goodwin Lake Walking Trail.

The city has dealt with complications from these worthless creatures for years. They ruin parks and fields. They create extra work for people to fill in their burrows to prevent safety problems and injuries. They can spread diseases. Furthermore, they fall in local swimming pools and drown.

Out of fairness to these little critters, I need to list all of their positive attributes. They eat grass.

Yup, that’s it. So for all of the negatives these little fellas bring to our community, a purchase of a lawnmower from a local hardware store far outweighs and eliminates any of their positives.

A simple Google search of the “most annoying animals of the decade” returns prairie dogs in a prominent spot on all of the different lists.

If we were talking about rattlesnakes or rats instead of prairie dogs in our public parks and lands would we drag our feet this long in eradicating the problem? Certainly not.

With the risk of getting the folks at PETA in an uproar, we need to get rid of these “colonies.” There’s no purpose in allowing them to maintain their locales and continue to wreck our town.

There was foolish talk in recent years about capturing all of them and relocating them to a nearby county. I’m sure they’d love our mosquitoes too.

Now it’s time to come up with a solution to rid Curry County of these rascals.

To quote — and forcefully reiterate — the closing to an editorial back on July 17, 2013, when we were the Clovis News Journal:

“So that leaves us with just one choice regarding prairie dogs at Potter Park: Kill them. Kill them all.”

That sounds about right.

Rob Langrell is the publisher of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]