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Living on Burrowed Time?

Prairie dogs in Lubbock, Texas, won a death row pardon this fall when state and local authorities backed off a plan to slaughter some 50,000 of the furry rodents by igniting propane in their burrows.

Prairie dogs in Lubbock, Texas, won a death row pardon this fall when state and local authorities backed off a plan to slaughter some 50,000 of the furry rodents by igniting propane in their burrows.

It seems state regulators had blamed the prairie dogs for polluting groundwater underneath a field where the city sprays its wastewater. Normally at such sites, which are common in the Southwest, vegetation filters out pollutants. But a growing prairie dog colony in the Lubbock field had scraped some areas down to dirt. An inspector also suspected that the animals' tunnels washed untreated water down into the underlying aquifer.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told Lubbock to take care of the problem. City officials responded with a mix of charity and lethal force. Some 1,500 prairie dogs were sent to pet shops or to a landowner who wanted them. Plans to kill the rest were in the works when environmentalists raised an outcry. They argued that the death order was based on a hunch, not science, and sued the state to stop the fiery carnage.

The outcome proved once again that when regulators do battle with furry critters, the cuter side usually wins. The state environmental commission reversed itself, and asked Lubbock to study whether other factors besides the prairie dogs may be causing the pollution. A few prairie dogs may still wind up dead in the end, but the city is more likely to try moving them or giving them away. "Anybody who wants prairie dogs, come on down," says Lubbock spokesman Tony Privett. "We've got a bunch."

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