Wal-Mart Vs. Nature

It’s not a good day to be a prairie dog.

Retail giant Wal-Mart, usually criticized for its labor practices, is now getting flak for killing a prairie dog colony in Lafayette. And all of it was to make way for a new store location.From the Boulder Daily Camera:

Earlier this year, Boulder County asked Wal-Mart to contribute to local land preservation to offset the impact its new store will have on local prairie habitat. Additionally, one local resident offered to help the company relocate the animals to city open space.

  The company rejected both offers and fumigated the colony after researching relocation and other options.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.