City prairie dogs may get a new home in the country

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to change some city prairie dogs into country ones.

Lawton City Council members will consider a proposal today that would allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move up to 100 prairie dogs who live near Elmer Thomas Park’s Ramada Park to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Federal officials are seeking to re-establish prairie dog colonies at the refuge, which has been without after major colonies “collapsed” in June 2021.

The proposal is an attractive one to the City of Lawton. While the cute rodents are a major draw to Elmer Thomas Park, prairie dogs have taken over park space to the point that overpopulation is prompting them to move into areas such as adjacent residential properties and athletic fields, and creating damage to the extent that Holiday in the Park had to spend thousands of dollars last year to replace wiring that prairie dogs had chewed on holiday displays.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation issued the City of Lawton a control permit that allowed city officials to poison some of the prairie dogs last fall, but while the effort did reduce their number, the park “remains overpopulated,” federal officials said.

Their solution: a partnership between the City of Lawton and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that will allow federal officials to come into the park in September and October and collect between 45 and 100 prairie dogs. Those animals will be relocated to one of the former colony sites in the refuge. In a letter from Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge biologist Christine Fallon, Fallon said the long-term goal is to establish more prairie dog towns throughout the refuge, with officials working to secure resources and infrastructure to continue its prairie dog reintroduction projects on a larger scale.

Wildlife biologists already have surveyed Elmer Thomas Park’s current population and are planning the trapping process, working in the area south of Ramada Park at the southeast corner of Northwest 2nd Street and Ferris Avenue. While separated from the main park by Northwest 2nd Street, the area is considered part of Elmer Thomas Park.

“Therefore, this presents a great opportunity for the City of Lawton and WMWR to simultaneously meet city management and conservation objectives, respectively,” Fallon wrote in her letter.

It’s not the first effort to transplant Elmer Thomas Park’s furry residents. In summer 2002, the city relocated prairie dogs to a colony it established on the shores of Lake Ellsworth. That population did not survive, mostly falling victim to predators such as raptors and snakes (although some moved out of the area to cause problems in other places). And in 1998, it was Elmer Thomas Park that provided the prairie dogs that the refuge used to establish a prairie dog town a half mile east of Quanah Parker Lake.

Prairie dogs aren’t the only Elmer Thomas Park-related item on today’s council agenda.

Council members also will be looking at a proposal from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to discuss the details of a conceptual plan envisioned for the park by Halff Associates. That firm was tapped by the council to create a new master plan to guide development in Lawton’s largest park, and Mayor Stan Booker and Ward 8 Councilman Randy Warren are asking council members to discuss the details of what they want to see.

Proposals contained within the master plan — or later added by council members — include moving roads and parking areas, building a boardwalk along Lake Helen, and creating an aquatics area that would include a new swimming pool to replace the municipal swimming pool on South 11th Street. City officials said the council discussion “may lead to the need” to direct city staff to issue Requests for Proposals for the swimming pool and boardwalk.