Letter from Slim Wolfe
Wildlife – September 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Texas Creek is welcome to take Villa Grove rodents
Editors:
A big ol’ howdy to your Texas Creek correspondent Charley Green! I imagine those prairie dogs will eventually catch up with the times and get rid of that archaic squealing, which sounds so much like bad bearings, and replace it with a cybervoice saying, “danger, you are too close.”
I didn’t begrudge them an existence when they were across the highway in the hardscrabble redneck subdivision. I was just amazed at how quickly they moved in my direction, so I tried various tactics to discourage proximity to my place, but they may have stopped on their own accord. Like dumb deer and dumb sheep and dumb people, they’d rather congregate on the highway shoulder. Maybe close calls with speeding vehicles are some sort of adrenaline rush.
I can see where a colony would be a real hardship for anyone ploughing with horses. In this day and age we can afford to be more tolerant of a lot of things since our corporations grow a lot of what we eat, and provide our transport, clothing, and such. I don’t know enough about badgers to know whether I could sustain yours in my neighborhood, but there would be a bountiful supply of hares, rabbits, and ground squirrels to supplement the prairie dog diet. No water, however.
But by all means come around and take a few rodents back to Texas Creek with you, and a few more to start a colony on the White House Lawn. One thing I have learned, a prairie dog colony will not discourage a double-wide colony for long. Well, some are bothered by prairie dogs and some are bothered by floaters in their beer; that’s diversity.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove
