Despite the long-term decline, the population is relatively stable, said Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Russell Martin. According to Martin, prairie dogs are in no danger of disappearing as a species — but because of their importance to the prairie ecosystem, it is important that researchers keep an eye on their populations.
“Prairie dogs are a keystone species, so when they are present there are other species that are present that would’t be present otherwise,” Martin said. “For example, if you have prairie dogs then you typically have burrowing owls present on the landscape as well, but if you get rid of prairie dogs then the burrowing owls typically disappear once the burrows disappear.”
KEY TO THE
PRAIRIE
By Eva Frederick
How one small species affects an entire grassland ecosystem
Other species depend on prairie dogs too; kit foxes, swift foxes, and the endangered black-footed ferret all use prairie dog holes as homes, and for species such as prairie hawks and rattlesnakes, prairie dogs are an important source of nutrition.
Despite their importance in ecosystems, prairie dogs are often considered pests and are forcibly eradicated. Removal efforts in the past have included filling prairie dog holes with cement, flooding the animals out, or vacuuming them up. Some prairie dog colonies are built over by developments.
Prairie dogs are also affected by diseases such as the plague (yes, that plague) which is carried by fleas.
In Texas, these factors have reduced prairie dog land from over 16 million acres to less than 150,000 acres, and their population has decreased by over 99 percent: now, less than 8 million prairie dogs remain in the state.
In the 1990s, several organizations filed a petition to get the black-tailed prairie dog federally listed as “threatened.”
The petition did not have the desired effect: prairie dogs remained unlisted. But the effort did set in motion a range-wide effort to learn more about the chunky little rodents that hold such an important place in grassland ecosystems.
This responsibility fell to Bill Van Pelt, who currently works as the Grassland Coordinator for the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, or WAFWA. Van Pelt helped put together a multi-state strategy to assess the current state of the black-tailed prairie dog across its range in the continental U.S., and work with landowners, state governments and other organizations to help protect the species. The plan required each individual state in the agreement to monitor their prairie dog numbers and coordinate reintroduction efforts as necessary.
Nearly 20 years after the initial plan was drafted, Van Pelt is still keeping a close eye on black-tailed prairie dogs, and biologists from every state still go out and conduct on-the-ground surveys to check in on their prairie dog populations. In 2014, WAFWA contracted with Western Ecosystems Technology, Inc., a Wyoming-based wildlife consulting company, to try a different way of assessing prairie dog colony area: satellite imaging.
The researchers used software to analyze satellite photos and calculate the amount of prairie dog towns across the plains. Van Pelt said he hopes this can be a lower-cost method to assess the state of the species.
Overall, Van Pelt said all WAFWA’s prairie dog conservation efforts are part of a bigger picture.
“In general what WAFWA did in the mid 2000s is move towards an ecosystem-based approach instead of trying to do just prairie dogs or just ferrets,” he said. “All these things are interrelated and moving towards a habitat conservation approach just makes sense, and it can be done in such a way that it doesn't impinge upon economic growth and development in the counties and the historical land uses.”
One barrier to prairie dog conservation is the public’s varying attitudes towards the creatures.
“Prairie dogs are very polarizing,” Martin said. “Some people think they are super cute and cuddly and some of the most amazing little critters in the world, and then other people just despise them and think they are the scourge of the earth and every last one of them needs to be eradicated. And truthfully, in my experience a lot of that has to do with how those people were raised and how they were taught to perceive prairie dogs.”
But these were not human settlers; they were black-tailed prairie dogs, chubby herbivorous rodents known for their extensive networks of burrows and hailed as the “chicken McNuggets of the grasslands.”
Their colonies, called towns, still dot the Texas prairie today. But since the early 1900s, the black-tailed prairie dog population has declined by over 95 percent, as the millions of acres they once covered dwindled due to agriculture and development. Now, the area of land occupied by prairie dogs hovers around two million acres across the entire Great Plains region.
And while there are recorded examples of these behaviors, Martin said it is important for ranchers to also consider the positive effects of the animals along with the negatives.
“We are not going to change everybody’s opinion on prairie dogs,” he said. “I know there are a lot of people out there whose opinions on them are set and there is nothing we can do about it and that’s fine, but I do think we still have to educate the folks that are willing to listen on what the prairie dogs’ purpose is and try to help them understand that they don’t need to be on every square inch of every ranch eating every blade of grass, but their presence on the landscape does have a purpose and they are important to the system.”
Texas Tech fine arts librarian and long-time prairie dog conservation advocate Robert Weiner agrees.
“There is a lot of misinformation about prairie dogs,” Weiner said. “A lot of people consider them to be vermin, but to me they are little beings — they have souls and they have unique personalities … So let’s not think so negatively about this animal — let’s think positively about this wonderful species that gives back to the ecosystem.”
According to Martin, people who aren't fans of prairie dogs often grow up hearing nothing but the detrimental effects that prairie dog colonies might cause.
John Erickson, a North Texas rancher and the author of the Texas classic children's book series, “Hank the Cowdog,” said that prairie dogs can do serious damage to a ranching operation if they are allowed to take over.
“From a rancher's perspective, they are very destructive,” Erickson said. “Their holes pose a real danger to mounted riders, and they attract rattlesnakes. They decimate their habitat, eating the grass down to the roots and leaving it worthless for livestock and wildlife grazers. The center of a prairie dog town looks like the moon.”
Over 100 years ago, one Texas town stretched across 25,000 square miles of the Panhandle plains, and housed a population nearly 200 times the size of Houston’s. The 400 million residents of this town rose and retired early, kissed each other by way of greeting, and shared their homes with animals of all kinds.