Bigger, louder, flashier denizens of the Midwestern plains - like
the cougar, wolf, and buffalo - may get more press, but it was
the gregarious, industrious little underground engineer of the
prairies who really won the West for civilization. Prairie dog
civilization, that is.
Doglike in their love of good company and good times, the playful
critters are actually architecturally sophisticated rodents who
once constructed elaborate dog towns with populations of several
thousand rotund rodents. At the turn of the 20th century, as many
as 5 billion occupied the Western United States. In 1900, one
dog town on the high plains of Texas was reported to extend 100
by 250 miles with an estimated 400 million doggie denizens. Their
towns covered much of the Western grasslands and deserts from
Canada to Mexico.
Close relatives of ground squirrels, chipmunks, and marmots, prairie dogs (PDs)come in five varieties: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Mexican (endangered), and Utah PDs, the smallest species and considered threatened. The black-tailed dog is still widespread, though sparsely distributed over the Great Plains and throughout the Great Basin area. They're also the most commonly species sold as pets. White-tailed dogs, who live at higher altitudes, hibernate in winter and are less socially organized than the more familiar black-tailed varieties.
Dogtown homes are well-engineered structures with reinforcements and dikes for protection against earthquakes and heavy rains. The dogs construct long tunnels, usually steeply slanting for about 15 feet, then running horizontally for another 20-50 feet or so. Chambers are built along the corridor for storage, nesting, and escape from invaders or floodwaters.
Prairie dog life revolves around the community. A typical family unit consists of one adult male and a group of closely related females and their children. Females have one litter of 3-8 pups a year, and mothers frequently take turns nursing and caring for each other's youngsters. The dog community is tight-knit and affectionate. Pups will uninhibitedly beg for grooming sessions from any adult that's handy, and family members greet each other with hugs and kisses. They have a playful nature, and even adult males need little persuasion to romp with the kids.
Named for their high-pitched, bark-like call, the little dogs actually have a sophisticated language. Naturalists have recently discovered that their repertoire of barks and whistles can identify specific predators including aerial attackers such as owls, hawks, eagles, and ravens and land predators from coyotes to badgers, ferrets and snakes. They can even distinguish between armed (dangerous) and unarmed (possibly harmless) humans.
This well-developed communication system is the dog town's best defense, and vigilant sentinels are always posted and ready to sound the alarm when the town's citizens are out and about. Capable of running up to 35 miles an hour over short distances, the dogs can turn tail and disappear down their numerous entry holes in a flash.
The danger signal is a two-syllable bark repeated about 40 times per minute. Once the alarm is sounded, other sentinels further away from the source of danger begin scanning the area to track the predator's movements.
When forced to relocate, the dogs take over abandoned holes or dig new ones at the edge of the town. Some may travel miles to find a suitable site for a new community, but disconnected from their communal warning system, they become very easy prey to a wide variety of predators.
Unfortunate clashes with ranchers, who fail to appreciate the impressive constructions on their grazing land, have severely reduced their numbers. But prairie dogs haven't retreated with tails between their legs, and that's very good news for the many creatures of the prairie who depend on them. Their grazing produces natural fertilizer, increasing both the protein content and digestibility of rangeland grasses.
Keeping the grass around their towns closely cropped, prairie dogs also encourage a variety of shrubs and other plant species to grow. About three times as many animals and twice as many species of wildlife inhabit their colonized habitats as dog-free zones. One major fan of the prairie dog is the endangered blackfooted ferret, who lives only in the dog's abandoned burrows and depends on strong, healthy doggie communities for its very existence, according to ferret expert Dean Biggins.
The little dogs lived in harmony with their ecosystem for countless generations, maintaining its delicate balance. But the arrival of cattle and sheep farmers competing for their land threatened their civilization. The ranchers wasted little time declaring war on the dogs, labeling them vermin and pests and accusing them of eating all the forage and endangering their livestock and horses with their treacherous tunnels. Massive dog eradication programs have been underway for decades, despite growing evidence that the "pests" are actually essential to the health of the prairie and the many other animals who live there.
Under attack from government programs, poisonings, flooding and trapping by ranchers, relentless habitat destruction from suburban sprawl, not to mention recreational dog shooting by "sportsmen," most prairie dog towns have become ghost towns. The dog population is flirting with "endangered" levels, and their territory has shrunk to a mere 2 percent of their natural range.
The huge dogtowns, stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction, have been broken up, and the smaller, more fragmented communities are far more vulnerable to disease and natural catastrophes. Bubonic plague has been epidemic in several dogtowns recently, and whatever threatens the health of the prairie dog inevitably threatens the more than 170 species who depend on their habitat. Many biologists and environmentalists foresee an "ecological train wreck" on the prairie if the dogs disappear.
To prevent such a disaster, communities like Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado, are setting aside thousands of acres for prairie dog colonies. Other communities are being preserved in Wind Cave National Park, Devils Tower National Monument and in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Reserve in Texas. A colony of Gunnison's PDs are also protected in Santa Fe, New Mexico municipal park.
Meanwhile, many ranchers continue their "no-holds-barred" war against the rodents, and many hunters hankering for something to kill seem to find great sport in shooting hundreds of the helpless animals with high-powered automatic rifles. The death tally at the 8th Annual Prairie Dog Extravaganza in North Dakota was 4,912 - shot in a 6-hour competition among 70 shooters. A nearby bar proudly displays charts tracking the kills from prairie dog "hunts." The grand total as of June 2000 was 23,895 kills.
While the shooters enjoy the camaraderie and believe they're doing the local farmers a service by ridding them of unwelcome pests, Jonathan Proctor, a Predator Conservation Alliance program associate, considers these shoots as nothing but "a blood sport that is causing great harm to the entire prairie dog ecosystem - not just prairie dogs but many other species."
The plucky PDs, of course, continue to go about their business of maintaining the health of the prairie, enjoying family life, and remaining ever vigilant. But their little home on the prairie just isn't what it used to be.
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