Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Prairie dogs and bison share the plains of South Dakota.

Prairie dogs are in trouble. Reduced to just a fraction of their former range, prairie dogs have fewer places to scamper free where they can till the soil and provide sustenance and shelter for other important prairie species. As a result, black-footed ferrets, badgers, foxes and eagles all suffer.

But Defenders has made tremendous strides in recent years to preserve remaining stretches of prime habitat and eliminate persistent threats to prairie dog survival. Finally, at least in a few places, prairie dogs may be returning home for good.

Some of our remedies, in the case of dangerous poisons, have been through taking legal action. In 2009, Defenders filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for allowing the use of Rozol and Kaput-D, two chemicals used to poison prairie dogs, across 10 different states. Yet states like Kansas are now making it easier for farmers and ranchers to apply Rozol and poison prairie dogs using ATVs with mechanical feeders instead of applying it by hand down each burrow entrance.

Defenders also successfully organized a campaign in 2008 to stop the former Bush administration from poisoning tens of thousands of prairie dogs in Conata Basin, South Dakota, in the most significant remaining prairie dog colonies on public land in the Great Plains. We stopped this drastic plan by generating significant attention, including a spot on CNN, and through organizing tens of thousands of people to write in opposition.

Defenders has also helped ranchers like Larry and Bette Haverfield stand tall against prairie dog poisoning. The Haverfields have challenged a 100-year-old law that would allow commissioners of Logan County, Kansas to poison prairie dogs on their property without permission. Instead, the Haverfields have protected the prairie dogs and even permitted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce ferrets on their ranch.

Jonathan Proctor transfers a prairie dog to its new (safe) home at Thunder Basin.

Other strategies have been much more successful. Last summer, Defenders’ prairie species expert Jonathan Proctor helped move more than 500 prairie dogs out of harm’s way at Thunder Basin National Grassland. The animals were moved from an area abutting private ranch land, where they were threatened with poisoning, to the center of a protected area. This precedent-setting collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, Wyoming Game and Fish, a local ranchers’ consortium and other conservation groups will hopefully pave the way for a new management style that replaces a “p0ison first” mentality with nonlethal tools that also restore wildlife to key protected areas.

Native American tribes have also been key partners in restoring prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets and countless other species. With some of the best remaining habitat under their control, the Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Lower Brule Reservations in South Dakota and the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana have all emerged as wildlife conservation leaders. All have reintroduced black-footed ferrets to large prairie dog colonies. Defenders has been honored to work with tribes and and contribute financial support when it was most needed, as well as helping to spread the word about their achievements.

Read more about the Thunder Basin projects and efforts to vaccinate prairie dogs for plague in the latest issue of Defenders Magazine. Also keep an eye out in the coming weeks and months for reports from the field (and the courts) on Defenders efforts to save prairie dogs, including video footage of Jonathan Proctor at Thunder Basin.

In case you’re just tuning in to the series, track back to see our posts about prairie dog behavior, their role as a keystone species, an unusual encounter between a prairie dog and a ferret, and the major threats they face.

A big thanks to Patrick McMillan for sharing his fantastic video series on prairie dogs from his Expeditions TV series!

Join us this week as we explore prairie dog ecology and conservation with Patrick McMillan, Clemson University naturalist. Patrick is the host of an educational TV program on wildlife and botany called “Expeditions.”

Black-tailed prairie dogs once occupied millions of acres of grasslands from the southern Canadian plains down to northern Mexico and across parts of 11 states in between. Today, they occupy less than five percent of their historic range due to the triple threat of people, poison and plague.

For more than a century, prairie dog colonies have been plowed under by farmers and developers. Prairie dogs have also been shot at by ranchers and others who viewed the small ground squirrels as annoying varmints. To this day, prairie dogs can still be “controlled” on private land by almost any means necessary, and the critters are routinely shot simply for sport.

That legacy has greatly influenced state and federal agencies who, for the past century, have been using dangerous poisons that kill not only prairie dogs but also numerous other species like swift foxes, eagles, turkeys and pheasants that join them on the prairie. While some poisons have been banned, new ones constantly emerge. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved the use of Rozol, an anti-coagulant chemical that causes animals to slowly bleed to death when ingested, and is considering allowing the use of a similar poison called Kaput-D.

To make matters worse, prairie dogs are now faced with an age-old killer: plague. The disease is essentially the same as the bubonic plague that wiped out human populations across Europe during the Middle Ages. Plague is not native to North American, arriving on ships in the early 1900s. Prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets and dozens of other animals are highly susceptible to sylvatic plague which is carried by fleas, and several colonies have fallen victim in recent years.

Together, these three factors (people, poison and plague) are a formidable force against the recovery of prairie dogs. Check back tomorrow to see what Defenders is doing to fight back and conserve this critical prairie species.

In case you’re just tuning in to the series, track back to see our posts about prairie dog behavior, their role as a keystone species, and an unusual encounter between a prairie dog and a ferret.

Read more about what Defenders is doing to protect prairie dogs.

Join us this week as we explore prairie dog ecology and conservation with Patrick McMillan, Clemson University naturalist. Patrick is the host of an educational TV program on wildlife and botany called “Expeditions.”

As discussed in yesterday’s post, prairie dogs are a keystone species that provides food for many other animals. Black-footed ferrets, one of the rarest carnivores in North America, are particularly dependent on prairie dog colonies. Scientists estimate that a ferret population requires 10,000 to 20,000 acres of prairie dog colonies to sustain itself.

Ferrets eat prairie dogs—each ferret consuming 100 or more each year—and raise their young in prairie dog burrows. Ferret babies, called kits, are born blind and spend the first two months of life being closely guarded below ground. In fact, ferrets spend about 90 percent of their time underground, usually emerging only at night to hunt for food.

It’s rare to see a ferret in the wild, and rarer still to see one during the day. But this clip captures one of the rarest moments of all. In this role reversal, a prairie dog fends off a ferret attack in broad daylight, chasing the ferret from burrow to burrow and exhibiting some abnormally aggressive behavior. The hunter becomes the hunted—yet another one of nature’s wonderful mysteries…this time caught on film!

In case you’re just tuning in to the series, track back to see our posts about prairie dog behavior and their role as a keystone species.

Read more about what Defenders is doing to restore black-footed ferrets to prairie dog colonies across the Great Plains.

Don’t miss our own Lacy Gray’s video of releasing ferrets at a reintroduction site on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in eastern Montana.

Join us this week as we explore prairie dog ecology and conservation with Patrick McMillan, Clemson University naturalist. Patrick is the host of an educational TV program on wildlife and botany called “Expeditions.”

Prairie dogs are known as a keystone species for the role they play in maintaining healthy ecosystems. First and foremost, they speed-up the recycling of soil by digging their burrows and bringing nutrients up to the surface. The additional churning of the soil creates a unique environment that allows wildflowers and other plants to thrive and can enhance forage for other animals like bison and pronghorn.

Prairie dogs are also diligent gardeners, trimming back any grasses or plants that grow taller than six to eight inches. This lawn maintenance is essential to maintaining a good line of sight between the mounds that mark the entrance of prairie dog burrows, where sentries look out for predators.

But prairie dogs are also a critical food source for many other species. Swift foxes, badgers, golden and bald eagles, and ferruginous hawks all prey upon prairie dog colonies. Others like burrowing owls and black-footed ferrets–one of the world’s most endangered mammals—use prairie dog burrows for raising their young and seeking protection from other predators. Where prairie dog populations have severely declined, these other critters quickly follow suit.

If you missed the first part of the series, click here to learn about prairie dog behavior.

Read more about what Defenders is doing to help protect prairie dogs and the other critters that depend on them.

Join us this week as we explore prairie dog ecology and conservation with Patrick McMillan, Clemson University naturalist. Patrick is the host of an educational TV program on wildlife and botany called “Expeditions.”

If you’ve driven across the Great Plains, chances are you’ve seen—or at least heard—prairie dogs. These gopher-like critters inhabit massive colonies called towns, consisting of a subterranean network of burrows that appear as small mounds of earth.

Prairie dog families, or coteries, stick together and live in close proximity to their relatives. The animals are in constant communication with each other to ward off surprise attacks by predators. Their incessant “yipping” is a way of calling attention to possible threats. When the coast is clear, they throw their arms up with a “jump-yip” to signal that the threat is gone.

When they’re not digging in the dirt or standing guard, prairie dogs lead a busy social life. Couples can often be seen kissing (touching noses helps to identify other individuals) or grooming each other. To learn more about prairie dog behavior, click here to see our fact sheet.

Historically, billions of prairie dogs occupied millions of acres of rolling prairie. But today, they survive in just two percent of their former range. Later this week, we’ll take a look at what factors have caused this decline, but first, check back tomorrow to find out why prairie dogs are a critical part of the prairie ecosystem.

Read more about what Defenders is doing to help protect prairie dogs and the other critters that depend on them.