Holocaust comparison to prairie dog management has Boulder council member facing backlash

Prairie dogs and Nazis are an unlikely pairing for headlines. But that’s the news from Boulder recently as elected officials addressed controversial comments from one of their own and attempted to temper the backlash with an official declaration.

Boulder Councilwoman Mirabai Nagle equated the city’s planned gassing of prairie dogs, a means of controlling their population on city-owned farmland, to Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Critics who condemned her initial remarks were not swayed by Nagle’s followup statement this week.

The controversy stems from a postcard mailed to members of Boulder City Council this fall following an 8-1 vote to use lethal control on burgeoning prairie dog populations. “’Humane Gassing’ (Isn’t that what the German Nazis called it when they did it to the Jews?)” it read. The postcard pictured members of the council at the dais. Nagle, the only dissenting vote, was depicted with a halo above her head.

During informal, pre-meeting chatter on Jan. 26, Councilman Mark Wallach referenced the postcard. Wallach, who is Jewish, decried the comparison to the Holocaust as odious and offensive.

Read more: https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/02/04/holocaust-comparison-to-prairie-dog-management-has-boulder-council-member-facing-backlash/