Legalize CO Prairie Dog Pet Domestication

    Prairie Dogs are illegal to care for as a pet in CO- yet legal as pets in other states and countries (in Japan they cost a pretty penny). According to World Population Review, PD's are legal vet-vaccinated pets in 31 states, but illegal in 19 states. They are rationalized as illegal in CO because some ranchers totally hate them. 

  Prairie Dogs are very populous in CO, as this land was/is their ancestral breeding grounds, and due to unsustainable & anti-ecological ranching methods, it's legal to shoot them or poison them to death, but not to cuddle and care for. Poisoning them also endangers the animals that eat them, such as hawks and owls.

    Another excuse for illegality, is that some of them carry diseases- however this can be easily avoided if purchased from a breeder, and have them vet-vaccinated, like PD legal states do, such as NM.

  Another excuse they use is that PD's belong in the wild- but if that really meant anything to CO, then why are Hedge Hogs, Red Kangaroos, Wallabies, Emu's and other wild animals allowed to be domestically owned as pets here?

  This law against the healthy cuddling PD pets is ridiculous and systemically racist because it benefits mostly white ranchers and their profits, instead of honoring this native animal, and the sustainable agricultural relationships they have to this land. The birds and the ground hogs are missing each other and their bug-foods too! Long Live the CO Prairie Dogs!!! Let's make PD domestication legal in CO!