Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. — A Colorado man has found a more down-to-earth use for satellite-tracking devices than stopping drug smugglers or pinpointing military targets: locating dog droppings.
With a global positioning device in hand, botanist Patrick Murphy charts piles of feces along a trail in an attempt to persuade city leaders to ban dogs from the area.
"They, too, will think I’m a nut," said Murphy, 50. "I’m making people aware of the obvious. The dog poop is abundant there. It stinks, it pushes out the deer and the birds."
In this college town where the library recently displayed an exhibit of ceramic penises, some people just shake their heads.
"I think it’s pretty silly," dog owner Jenny Boid said as she walked her golden retriever-chocolate Labrador mix on the trail. "He has a good point, but he could probably put his efforts into organizing a solution, like scheduling community poop pickups."
Three times in the past year, Murphy has walked the Sanitas Valley trail with his GPS device, counting piles of droppings along the gravel footpath. He then plugs the GPS into his computer and generates maps with each pile marked with a green X.
The former dog owner plans to present his latest chart to the city council on Tuesday. But council members said they are hard-pressed for a solution.
The path has been bumpy. In July, a jury acquitted him of harassment for videotaping three unleashed dogs. Two of the owners were given citations.
"It’s kind of like the tyranny of political correctness where nobody wants to say anything bad about dogs," he said.
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