RMAD stands for Rocky Mountain Animal Defense. In the updated Camera article, Dave Crawford from RMAD gets a few (too many) paragraphs worth of space….
Relocation sites are few and far between. That means animal-rights activists such as Dave Crawford, head of Rocky Mountain Animal Defense, will be scrambling to find the prairie dogs suitable new homes in the next two weeks.
“Lethal control is off the table for RMAD,” he said. “You can’t justify it in terms of what we’ve historically done to this animal. The killing has got to stop.”
Crawford said the city must try harder to find a nonlethal alternative. Relocating the rodents to a nearby colony should be an option, he said, because there are fewer than 10 animals that need to be removed. Crawford said his group also hopes a private landowner will step forward with land.
This is certainly a lesson in politics. RMAD is a special interest group, it does not directly control the Boulder City Council or the Boulder County Commissioners. However, the way Mr. Crawford speaks he sure seems to think he does. This is no surprise as I’m sure they have been welcomed with open arms in the past by the City Council and County Commissioners. Hopefully this will change.
I am amused as well that Mr. Crawford thinks a private landowner will step forward. This sugar-daddy Mr. Crawford envisions should have lots of land for two reasons:
1. It won’t take long for the prarie dogs to do what they do best and multiply, and then destroy the land.
2. Who’s going to build the fence to keep the dogs on this private owners land? Perhaps he owns an island?
The fact is there are too many prairie dogs and not enough space. Deer hunting season is to thin out the deer population, why is this such a hard concept to transfer over to prarie dogs? I suppose it’s because deer meat can be consumed as food (sorry vegetarians) but there is no use for the prairie dog carcass.
