Lawton planning to give some prairie dogs to wildlife management areas

Three wildlife management areas have told the City of Lawton they want some members of Elmer Thomas Park’s prairie dog colony — and city staff is happy to oblige.

While the prairie dog colony is popular with visitors and has been a noted tourist draw for Lawton and Comanche County for decades, city officials and those with property and amenities/buildings in or near Elmer Thomas Park say the animals are incredibly destructive. Because they are so prolific, their population spreads beyond the park, meaning residents south of the park, businesses east of the park, and school athletic fields on the park’s western and northern edges have had problems with their burrows.

For Holiday in the Park, that has meant spending thousands of dollars to replace wiring whose protective layers were stripped by prairie dogs seeking nesting material. For Museum of the Great Plains, it means worrying about burrows undermining their foundations. For the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, it meant worrying that burrows would undermine the integrity of Interstate 44, after prairie dogs created a “high rise apartment complex” at the tri-level. For Lawton Public Schools, it has meant years of worry when prairie dogs moved into the athletic fields for Lawton High and Central Middle School.

David Tyler, who maintains athletic fields for Lawton Public Schools, said he watches carefully for the rodents specifically because the holes they create are dangerous for youth using the fields. Tyler said earlier this year, he spotted three prairie dogs who had come onto an athletic field on the park’s north side. Eight days later, he said those initial three had grown to more than 30.

He’s bracing for more, explaining years of observation have taught him whenever there is construction in Elmer Thomas Park, it forces prairie dogs to migrate — often to LPS athletic fields. So, he fears the effect when construction on the park’s new aquatics center begins.

“That will drive them here,” he said.

Parks and Recreation Director Larry Parks, noting prairie dogs have been spotted inside the fence surrounding the splash pad in Elmer Thomas Park’s central region, said city officials want the prairie dogs moved before construction begins.

While action in past years has centered on a poisoning campaign permitted by state officials, this year Parks and Recreation is trying a variation of an approach they used last year: capturing and relocating the prairie dogs.

Three wildlife management areas have said they want those prairie dogs: Hal & Fern Cooper Wildlife Management Area, a 16,080-acre preserve in Woodward and Harper counties; Cimarron Hills Wildlife Management Area, a 4,200-acre preserve in Woods County; and Sandy Sanders Wildlife Management Area, a 29,766-preserve in Greer and Beckham counties.

“Sandy Sanders wants all of them,” Parks said, of biologists who want to establish a colony of their own (don’t worry; City of Lawton officials say they will keep a small colony, confining members to the central region of Elmer Thomas Park).

It’s the same technique the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge used last year to capture prairie dogs in Ramada Park (a section of Elmer Thomas Park located on the east side of Northwest 2nd Street) to create new prairie dog colonies in the refuge.

Work to capture prairie dogs for the three wildlife management areas should begin in mid- to late-October, when temperatures cool, Parks said. Those relocations will be coordinated by biologists with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, working in partnership with the wildlife management areas. Parks said biologists will show city staff the best method to use, saying the technique is expected to be flushing the prairie dogs out of their burrows with soapy water and catching them as they escape.

Parks said city officials plan to use the relocation technique in future years, to keep what is now estimated at a population of 500 to a manageable level. But, he predicted the city will may have to use its poisoning campaign for a time to make that happen.

“Initially, we may have to revisit it,” Parks said, adding his goal is to ultimately eliminate the practice. “We don’t want them to leave. We want to keep them in a controlled area, where they are not so destructive.”

City officials have several options to keeping the prairie dogs confined. For example, biologists say the animals won’t go into areas with tall grass and water.

“They don’t like sand, either,” Parks said, adding the city’s plan once the prairie dogs are relocated is to fill burrows with a sand/water mix so new tenants won’t move into the vacated holes.