BIXBY'S prairie dogs may be moving to Broken Arrow

Friday, July 27th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The future of Bixby's prairie dog town will be moving in a couple of weeks. Saturday morning, a group was suppose to have gathered up the prairie dogs and move them to Oklahoma City, but plans change.

KOTV told you about the prairie dogs last week. They've made their home near a Bixby shopping center for the past five years. A local rescue group planned to flush the prairie dogs out with water Saturday morning and take them to Oklahoma City, but that didn't happen.

People protested, afraid the prairie dogs would get hurt. "By having the state hunting license, they're within the law if they want to shoot the animals, to catch them with dip nails, what I understand they're trying to do is remove them, not harm them and remove them to a nature park in Oklahoma City." The landowner told residents, "well theyâ€™re a nuisance, look at them over there, they're everywhere, they're just a nuisance." Despite wanting the prairie dogs gone, the landowner agreed to wait two weeks while the protestors raise enough money to locate a new home for the prairie dogs.

If they raise a thousand dollars by August 15th, the prairie dogs will be moved to land near the Peach House in Broken Arrow. Prairie dog specialist, Davelynn Call, "If you take a prairie dog from the wild and put it in new land its going to panic and run off."

If they get the money, the land in Broken Arrow will be converted to a 3-acre prairie dog colony.