Prairie dogs are cute. From a distance. From the side of a road. In a prairie dog village with little binoculars.

But not necessarily on your property. For this reason, the State of Colorado has a law empowering landowners to kill the little vermin if you end up with them on your property. Boulder (of course) has traditionally protected its prairie dogs, but the state is now telling it that this law conflicts with state law and needs to be changed.

Tonight, the Boulder City Council is trying to vote on a bill to permit poisoning. A fair number of Boulderites, whose sensitivity towards animals apparently never got beyond those 4th-grade "Save the Whales" posters we're now embarassed we made, have decided to protest. Tell ya what. If they pay for the ankle splints from the holes, the rabies treatments, and the hanta-virus quarantines.

Of course, there's always this option: