The idea came to Gay Balfour in a dream - build a vacuum system powerful enough to suck prairie dogs from their burrows and the business would come.
He did and it has.Balfour vacuums prairie dogs from their holes in urban areas or on farms. The animals are deposited alive "but somewhat confused" in a large tank in his truck.
"It causes them no harm," Balfour said from his Colorado home. "There's no poisons or gas used, strictly vacuum. It takes the little critter up and puts him in a tank, and there he can either be relocated or dispatched, whatever's necessary to do."
He said the animals go up a tube 4 inches in diameter and about 50 feet long, and then slide along a padded deflector plate and down into the tank.
Balfour said the prairie dogs captured by his vacuum may have to be killed if there's no place to relocate them. He said he is trying to avoid that by developing a market to send them to Japan to be used as pets.