“One of the largest commercial projects in the nation” is underway in Castle Rock, Colorado. It is heartbreaking to say, the initial work on the development has destroyed one of the largest prairie dog colonies on Colorado’s Front Range. Unfortunately, our months long effort to delay the initial start of the project for a few months to allow for the safe, humane, and effective translocation of this colony were crushed by the Castle Rock Town Council’s approval of an ordinance for a zoning variance and the developer, Alberta Development Partners, LLC, followed by the poisoning of the colony with Aluminum Phosphide.

We are generating this petition to demand that Alberta Development Partners, LLC (the developers in charge of this mall) work with WildLands Defense (WLD) to develop a relocation management plan prior to the continuation of construction to make every effort possible to stage the prairie dogs in Douglas County, Colorado, their county of origin, through the creation of a new prairie ecosystem, with appropriate prairie dog habitat and an on-site educational program to teach the importance of a prairie ecosystem and the prairie dog as a keystone species of the prairie.

The new mall is located in Douglas County Colorado and is going to cover almost 200 acres in concrete. Unfortunately, over 100 acres of prairie dogs lived here, in between 3,000 to 8,000 burrows. At this time, there are no laws in place to require developers to move these animals which gave Alberta Development, LLC, the green light to exterminate the community's prairie dogs. This is problematic for many reasons, a major one being that more than 99% of prairie dogs have already been exterminated  in the name of development, from their historical numbers. The state refuses to list them as endangered and instead has given them the status of “pests” expediting their annihilation leading straight towards their extinction.

Please sign this petition to express your outrage to the developers at the merciless extermination of hundreds to thousands of prairie dogs in the name of profit. We insist that the surviving prairie dogs are relocated in the most humane way possible to ensure their future survival. This is the responsibility of the developers and we demand that they do the right thing, to atone for the needless slaughter of this community of life, by purchasing suitable prairie land within Douglas County and creating a conservancy and educational program to restore the wildlife destroyed by the poisoning and construction activities at the development site

You can read more about this situation by viewing the following articles:
http://colorado.deepgreenresistance.org/2015/01...

http://www.examiner.com/article/castle-rock-poisoned-prairie-dogs-abhorrence-of-cruelty-has-no-borders​

http://meadowlarkherald.blogspot.com/2015/03/what-was-original-zoning-of-prairie-dog.html?spref=fb

And you can also get a glimpse of the prairie dogs by watching this 8 minute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbPOaHBP5Bs

Follow us on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/savethecastlerockmallprairiedogs

Help us with costs associated with our efforts:  http://www.gofundme.com/prtx7s ;

You can contact us at:

info@wildlandsdefense.org
720-722-1691

We're not asking for the impossible. It's been done before! 

http://www.mylubbock.us/departmental-websites/departments/parks-recreation/prairie-dog-town

Thank you for your support!