Rawlins residents are fed up with a colony of prairie dogs that’s become more than a nuisance, digging into and around graves in the Rawlins Cemetery.
Prairie dogs are disturbing the eternal peace of the dearly departed, and locals are getting frustrated.
Janice Martinez and her husband visit the Rawlins Cemetery every day. She shared her frustration with seeing prairie dog holes throughout the grounds, some directly over the spots where people are buried, to the Rawlins New and Chatter Facebook group.
“I cannot believe the damage the ‘ground squirrels’ are causing to our cemetery,” she wrote. “Maybe whoever’s in charge of this should take a drive through the cemetery and take a look at the daily destruction these animals are doing.”
The city has announced that it is, “Increasing efforts to control the ground squirrels … in partnership with Carbon County Weed & Pest” by increasing the number of trap stations in and around the cemetery.
Those traps will be loaded with Rozol, one of the most potent prairie dog poisons on the market, the city says.
Whether it’s marauding grizzlies or urban deer herds, Wyoming has learned how to co-exist with nature in urban settings. The most reliable remedy to stop prairie dogs from disturbing the dead is death.
Undesignated Grave Diggers
Black-tailed prairie dog burrows are deep and expansive. A single burrow can span a 30-foot area and go nearly 10 feet deep, with multiple foot-wide entrances and exits.
Prairie dogs are also highly social animals.
A prairie dog “town” with multiple family groups and burrows can span hundreds of acres. Having such a lively community of chipping, burrowing prairie dogs disturbs the serenity of many cemeteries in Wyoming.
Darin Edmonds, superintendent of the Campbell County cemetery district, knows the struggle all too well.
“People get squirrely about anything digging underground where their loved ones are,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Prairie dogs are a nuisance and their holes are unsightly, but it’s one of those things that can happen in rural Wyoming.”
Edmonds oversees eight cemeteries in Campbell County. The cemeteries “in the middle of nowhere” tend to have persistent prairie dog problems, but they can also cause havoc within city limits.”
“Prairie dogs probably do the most damage, visibly and physically, of any critter I’ve encountered,” he said. “But in Wyoming, you’re subject to the natural tendencies of wildlife.”
These prairie dog towns aren’t big enough for the two opposing grave diggers. Edmonds is the elected gravedigger of Campbell County, and he runs a tight shift with no tolerance for bothersome burrowers.
“We like to be in charge of that process,” he said.
A prairie dog problem at the Rawlins Cemetery has some locals frustrated, like Janice Martinez, who posted about the issue in the Rawlins News and Chatter Facebook group. "It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered with dirt, new holes dug on a daily basis," she wrote. (Janice Martinez via Facebook) 
A prairie dog problem at the Rawlins Cemetery has some locals frustrated, like Janice Martinez, who posted about the issue in the Rawlins News and Chatter Facebook group. "It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered with dirt, new holes dug on a daily basis," she wrote. (Janice Martinez via Facebook) 
A prairie dog problem at the Rawlins Cemetery has some locals frustrated, like Janice Martinez, who posted about the issue in the Rawlins News and Chatter Facebook group. "It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered with dirt, new holes dug on a daily basis," she wrote. (Janice Martinez via Facebook) 
A prairie dog problem at the Rawlins Cemetery has some locals frustrated, like Janice Martinez, who posted about the issue in the Rawlins News and Chatter Facebook group. "It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered with dirt, new holes dug on a daily basis," she wrote. (Janice Martinez via Facebook) 
A prairie dog problem at the Rawlins Cemetery has some locals frustrated, like Janice Martinez, who posted about the issue in the Rawlins News and Chatter Facebook group. "It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered with dirt, new holes dug on a daily basis," she wrote. (Janice Martinez via Facebook)
Flooding Failure
Edmonds recalled the struggle of evicting a prairie dog family from one of Campbell County’s rural cemeteries. The varmints had burrowed into the hallowed ground from an adjacent private ranch.
“They had four or five holes inside a small parcel we manage, but their primary habitat was on private property,” he said. “We had to get applications from Campbell County and work with the rancher, who wanted them gone too.”
The first plan of attack was to bring in a water tanker and flood the burrow. It didn’t work.
“We thought we could flood them out, but their tunnels can stretch for hundreds of yards,” he said. “They just avoided the water coming in one hole and ran out of another.”
Another problem with prairie dogs is that they’re very communicative with each other. They have a variety of calls that every prairie dog within shouting distance will instinctively respond to, which makes it hard to get the drop on them.
At first, flooding the prairie dog town seemed to have worked, but Edmonds said the cemetery was brimming with life less than a week later.
“We’d put the water in, come back a week later, and they had just re-excavated everything,” he said. “That’s when we realized it wasn’t going to work.”
A Temporary Death Sentence
Ultimately, the best way to control the cemetery’s prairie dog problem was an automatic death sentence. Edmonds said the burrowing problem was only solved by poisoning the prairie dogs.
“Poisoning is probably the best remedy, fortunately or unfortunately,” he said. “We went out to the extent of that environment, applied poison, and it seemed to work.”
Edmonds and Campbell County worked with the rancher to ensure the poisoning was done safely without jeopardizing livestock or wildlife. Poisoning isn’t the only solution, but Edmonds said it’s the most economical in terms of time and resources.
“You could try live trapping them, but the quickest, shortest and most effective remedy is to poison them,” he said.
Black-footed ferrets are effective at controlling prairie dog populations, as their diet consists of around 90% prairie dog. They might eliminate a family or colony, but they also move into the vacant burrows, so that’s not an effective cemetery solution.
Having a timely response is about more than convenience. Prairie dog holes can cause injury to animals and people, especially in an area with potentially high foot traffic, such as a community cemetery.
“Those entrances go down quite a bit, and you worry that someone’s going to step inside one,” Edmonds said. “Cattle can break their legs in those holes, and the weight of a human, lawnmower, or other equipment could cause a collapse in soft, sandy soil. You could move a little ground or a lot of ground all of a sudden and be really angry at the prairie dogs.”
Poison may have solved Campbell County's prairie dog problem, but Edmonds knows better than to let his guard down. Death doesn’t reduce the perceived property value of prime prairie dog habitat.
“I don’t think it’s a forever thing,” he said. “They might wander back at some point, and we’ll have to address it when they do.”
Everyday Life After Death
In response to the prairie dog colonization of Rawlins Cemetery, the City of Rawlins pledged to triple its T-trap bait stations in spring and summer.
Anyone who encounters a dead prairie dog in the cemetery should contact the Rawlins Public Works Department to dispose of it (as burrow burials in a cemetery aren’t permitted).
For some residents, like Martinez, it seems like too little, too late.
“I read the post about the new poisoning system,” she said. “It breaks my heart to see graves being dug up, stones covered in dirt and new holes dug on a daily basis.”
Edmonds has more-or-less accepted prairie dogs as an expected occupational hazard for Wyoming’s cemeteries. He thinks the city of Rawlins will have some success with its poisoning program, but the prairie dogs will doggedly return where they aren’t wanted.
“Being underground is their thing,” he said. “They are totally unaware of human boundaries or who owns which side of the fence. If a cemetery is in an active prairie dog habitat, it’s one of the hazards you’ve got to deal with.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
