Residents in a north Boulder neighborhood found themselves awoken Tuesday morning by what has become a familiar and terrifying sound -- prairie dog burrows being blown up by a device known as the "Rodenator."
The machine -- which the Colorado Wildlife Commission approved for use in 2006 as an acceptable way for landowners to exterminate the rodents -- pumps a propane mixture into burrows, then ignites the gas.
The result is an explosion that neighbors say rattles windows and frays nerves.
"That's how I woke up yesterday morning, with just these 'booms,'" said Leslie Middleton, who lives in the Orchard Creek neighborhood near the intersection of Jay and Spine roads. "It seems like it goes every 30 to 90 seconds."
Middleton, along with about a dozen neighbors, have been fighting the use of the Rodenator since several landowners in adjacent unincorporated Boulder County began using the device in 2007.
"Kids at the end of the cul-de-sac actually saw some prairie dogs on fire, running and screaming," Middleton said of a previous Rodenator sweep.
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