Dedicated to the Preservation of Prairie Dogs and their Habitat
The prairie dog, reviled by landowners and rejected in most parts for potential protection as a 
threatened or endangered species, nevertheless has the sympathy of at least one public body.
Starting in 2007, the Colorado Department of Transportation developed a policy which, if not beating the drum for the rodent, at least aims to maintain a viable population of the critters.
Read More: Protect
Rodney Baltzer, President of WCS, explained to the NY Times that the company has dug a huge pit in Andrews Country, Texas, with other planned to be dug over the next few years, into which a base layer of nearly waterproof clay has been set. Then a layer of concrete was poured on top, reinforced with steel, and then three layers of plastic. The low-level nuclear waste is loaded into large concrete containers and then placed in the pit, which once full will then be covered by a 40-foot thick cap of concrete, clay, and finally a special cap to prevent prairie dogs from burrowing into the area.
(ISNS) — The term “keystone species” was made for prairie dogs. These charismatic critters build vast underground 
towns across the plains, creating housing for themselves and many other animals. One of the squatters is the Western burrowing owl, a tiny insectivore that makes its home on the outskirts of prairie dog colonies.
New research suggests that the owls don’t just gain a free home from the prairie dogs, but they also eavesdrop on the prairie dogs’ sophisticated alarm calls, which scientists have described as a rudimentary form of grammar. The owls, less than a foot high, sneak tips about lurking predators from their highly vocal housemates, according to a study in next month’s Ethology.
Read more at:Inside Science and Lab Equipment on Owls
Two-dozen Lubbock prairie dogs are now living in the Land of Enchantment.
The small ground-dwelling mammals have been relocated to Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park in Carlsbad, N.M.
Read more: Lubbock
Prairie dogs may not be the only critters burrowed into the grasslands of western Nebraska. The swift fox also calls the area home.
The native swift fox is on the Nebraska endangered and threatened species list. For that reason, the Nebraska Department of 
Roads and Marc Albrecht, associate professor of biology at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, will collect data on the foxes in the spring and summer of 2014 along the corridor of the Heartland Expressway.
Read more at: Fox
Here is a cute video of some prairie dogs “at work”. Notice how the bison doesn’t step in the prairie dog burrow and break his leg…but he is interested in what’s to eat around the burrow!
Check it out on youtube: Close up!
There are many images that evoke thoughts of New Mexico. The Cabezon, Otero Mesa, Governor’s Square in Santa Fe, the smell of roasting chile, but there is none that evoke it so much for me as the picture taken by Chuck Hayes at the Sevilleta. It just SCREAMS New Mexico. Prairie, Mountains, and Prairie Dogs.
This is a prairie dog we’d relocated during the summer. The Manzanos are in the background and you can see an artificial burrow tube immediately to the side of the prairie dog. It is still used for emergencies but this prairie dog had already dug in near by.
Here’s another beauty captured by Sharyn Davidson.
Similar Species: White-tailed and Utah prairie dogs have white in center of tail rather than grayish. Black-tailed Prairie Dog’s tail has black tip.
Breeding: 1 litter per year of 1–8 young, born in early May; gestation 27–33 days, pups emerge mid June.
Habitat: Short grass prairies in high mountain valleys and plateaus of southern Rocky Mountains at elevations of 6,000–12,000’ (1,800–3,600 m). Habitat is much more variable topographically and vegetationally than that of the Black-tailed Prairie Dog, which occurs at lower elevations.
Range: Southeastern Utah, south and central Colorado, northeast and central Arizona, and northwest New Mexico.
Discussion: The Gunnison’s Prairie Dog, like the rest of its kin, is active only when the sun is up, and is most energetic near dawn and dusk. It is constantly vigilant while aboveground, often sitting upright on its hind feet while it pursues its main activities: mainly feeding, but also grooming and playing. This animal generally is seen from April to October. It hibernates (torpor) in winter, living on stored body fat. It usually emerges in April, though they will emerge earlier if the winter is mild. Gunnison’s Prairie Dog feeds on green vegetation, particularly grasses, but also forbs, sedges, and shrubs, as well as a few insects. Its colonies are generally smaller and less closely knit than those of other prairie dogs, resembling ground squirrel aggregations, with fewer than 50 to 100 individuals. The animals in the colony cannot always see one another because their habitat is in such varied and patchy terrain, which is caused in part by human activities. On flat ground and where this prairie dog is protected colonies are much larger and more extensive. This species’ burrow systems can be up to 80 feet long and 16 feet deep in well-established colonies. Burrows can have food storage, flood, nesting, communal and excrement chambers. Territoriality is not well developed in Gunnison’s Prairie Dog, although old males may defend small areas outside their burrows. Mother-young relationships form the basic social unit. Newborns remain in the burrow about three weeks before emerging and are weaned about three weeks later. The female sits almost straight up on her haunches to nurse her young, who suckle either pectoral or inguinal (hind leg) nipples. Gunnison’s alarm call, distinctive among prairie dogs, is important to the survival and structure of the community. It is a series of high-pitched barks of one or two distinct syllables, with the second syllable lower and more guttural. The call may be repeated frequently and may continue for as long as half an hour. It increases in intensity as danger escalates, and ends in chatter as the animal enters its burrow. Predators include American Badgers, Coyotes, weasels, and raptors. Plague (Yersina pestis), carried by fleas, can decimate populations of this species. However, humans, through their extermination programs, are the chief enemy of Gunnison’s Prairie Dog.
Prairie dogs are known as a “keystone species.” Over 160 vertebrates alone are associated with large prairie dog colonies and over 80 on “urban” colonies. Possibly the world’s most endangered animal, the Black-footed Ferret, cannot live without prairie dogs. Some other federally protected species are nearly as dependent including the Ferruginous Hawk, the Burrowing Owl, the Swift Fox and the Mountain Plover. Biologists have termed them “perhaps the most important mammal on earth.”Prairie dogs are important to their environment in three ways:
For more facts, visit 101 Questions and Answers about Prairie Dogs and Environmental Change and the Prairie Dog
Populations: The Ultimate Underdog
Gunnison’s Prairie Dogs are a White-tailed subspecies, which inhabits the four corners region. Once ubiquitous, current estimates place their populations at about 2 – 5% of their former range.
Two of the five species of prairie dogs are protected under the Endangered Species Act. There may be fewer Utah Prairie Dogs than Siberian Tigers. Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, the most numerous due their large range, are considered a Candidate for Threatened Listing. They meet all criteria for listing, but the Fish and Wildlife Service does not yet have the resources to enforce the listing, so they were placed on the Candidate List in 2000. They are on about 1% of their former range.
Ecological Importance: A ‘keystone species.’
Prairie dogs are a ‘keystone species,’ or most important element, of their environment.
Up to 160 other species benefit from their presence.
They enrich their environment in three ways:
The Black-footed Ferret is the most endangered mammal on our continent and cannot live without prairie dogs under any circumstances.
The Ferruginous Hawk, Swift Fox, Mountain Plover, and Burrowing Owl, are considered for or federally protected species that are considered dependent on prairie dogs. Several other species are considered dependent on prairie dogs. Several other species are considered dependent.
It’s a Dog’s Life: a Brief Description of the Prairie Dogs, Themselves
Prairie dogs possess, perhaps, the most complex language of any animal ever studied. Even more so than primates. They have over fifty primary ‘words’ and can communicate in sentences, distinguish color, speed, and level of threat through language.
Prairie dogs live in family units called ‘coteries’. They often ‘kiss’ in a familial identification. The animals commonly seen poised on their hindquarters are sentries, ever vigilant on the lookout for danger to themselves and families.
Prairie dogs are annual breeders. Fifty percent of females over two years of age will give birth to about 4 pups in the spring. There is tremendous juvenile mortality.
Prairie dogs live to be about five years old in the wild.
Burrows are complex, with separate ‘rooms’ for each function of life. Toilet chambers, sleeping quarters and storage typify a home burrow. Often, listening posts are created near the entrance for added protection. Some burrows have several entrances.
Gunnison’s and White-tailed Prairie Dogs hibernate, or go into torpor, as it is called, from about November through February. Black-tailed Prairie Dogs do not hibernate.
Architecture of an Artificial Burrow
The picture to the left illustrates one example of an artificial burrow. PDP uses a slightly different design. We use a 25-gallon, plastic nursery pot for what we call the nesting box (described in the illustration as the “initial burrow chamber or room”). We attach a ten-foot long tube to the side of the upside-down nursery pot for an entrance/exit tunnel, as shown. Our second tube, unlike the one in the picture, we install through the top of the nursery pot, extending down into it so that the end of the tube sits a few inches above the base. We dig a hole in the ground roughly four feet deep, lay a piece of hardware cloth in the bottom, and then set on that the upside-down nursery pot with attached tubes. The hardware cloth prevents the prairie dogs from digging out of the nesting box, while the tubes allow them to climb to the surface. When we release the prairie dogs, we usually send them down the vertical tube; gravity encourages them to proceed to the bottom rather that stopping in the tube and causing a traffic-jam.
After inserting the prairie dogs into the artificial burrows, we place a containment cage (we call them cage caps) over each egress tube. We continue to feed and monitor the prairie dogs for up to five days. This gives them a chance to acclimate to their new surroundings. Then we remove the cage caps and allow them to “escape” from the artificial burrows. Able to come and go as they please, they continue to use the man-made burrows as a refuge from predators and for temporary shelter until they can construct their own burrows.
In a recent article on prairie dogs, it is mentioned that their main purpose in the world is to feed other plains animals, provide homes for owls and plague the herds, fields and wallets of ranchers and farmers. While all of these functions are legitimate, it did not mention the main importance of prairie dogs.
Prairie dogs dig their burrows, sometimes 50 holes an acre, all across the plains. These burrows go down several feet, letting rain water flow directly to roots of the grass. It also allows water to replenish the water table and underground aquifers. Now that water levels are dropping and Western cities are growing nervous, prairie dogs will need to have large numbers to balance human water use by replenishing our ground water systems and underground aquifers.
Introduction–Natural History of the Badger
In order to fully understand the current situation with the Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) and its predator, the badger (Taxidea taxus) at the Prairie Dog Primary Habitat at Grasslands Preserve, the largest City of Albuquerque Open Space, Bernalillo County, NM, one first must be informed about the natural and life history of the badger in general.
Reproduction
Badgers are promiscuous and have delayed implantation. The implantation of the early embryo (called the blastocyst) occurs in February and development proceeds until pups are born. Badger pups are born late March or early April in other latitudes. Litter size ranges from 1 to 5 with the most often number at 2 or 3 pups. Males that are 14 months have mature sperm already. Males are in their breeding season during the May to August period. Of the female yearlings, 38% do not release eggs from their ovaries (ovulate). About 52-72% of the females gave birth or were pregnant in Idaho.
Behavior
Adult badgers are night active (that is nocturnal) while young of the year are active at dawn and dusk (that is crepuscular). Badgers do not hibernate although they do undergo a mild torpor. Badgers are solitary except during the breeding season where the sexes get together and pup-rearing season when the mother is with pups.
Density
On average there is one badger per 2.6 square kilometers in NW Utah while there are 2 badgers every square kilometers in northwestern Wyoming.
Home Range
For badgers one year old and older males have a home range of 5.8 square kilometers while females have a home range of 2.4 in northwestern Utah. In southwestern Idaho, animals older than one year old, the males had a home range of 1.4 square kilometer. Home ranges of all sex and age classes may overlap. Adult males overlap the home ranges of a number of smaller female home ranges.
Territoriality
There is a tendency for females to be territorial or guard their home ranges. Territorial systems are favored whereby human exploitation by trapping is minimal.
Food Habits
Prey of badgers includes rodents and rabbits/hares (that is lagomorphs) and occasionally birds, reptiles, and insects. Prey abundance in their diet varies according to prey availability, season-to-season, and year-to-year. Badgers have a very sturdy or robust pectoral girdle (upper body) with powerful pectoral muscles and well-developed claws for digging. Rodents which they prey upon include: the mountain pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides), yellow-nosed pocket gopher (Pappogeomys castanops), kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spp.), pocket mice (Perognathus spp.), ground squirrels (Spermophilus spp. and Ammospermophilus spp.), northern grasshopper mice (Onychomys leucogaster), southern plains woodrat (Neotoma micropus), house mice (Mus musculus), and deer mice (Peromyscus sp.). Lagomorphs eaten include black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) and desert cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus audubonii). Badgers will frequent old badger dens and catch and eat cottontails and ground squirrels usurping them. Badgers will hunt ground squirrels by plugging all entrances but one, and then they will excavate it. Another strategy is to hide in their underground burrows and ambush ground squirrels. Yet another strategy is to dig open ground squirrel burrows and kill the entire family.
Predators
Badger predators include coyotes (Canis latrans), striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), mountain lions (Puma concolor), and rarely other badgers. Humans kill badgers by accidentally striking them with vehicles, shooting them, poisoning them (sodium fluoroacetate), and trapping them.
Denning Behavior
The den is the center of daytime that is diurnal) inactivity, food storage, and birth. Dens have an elliptical entrance with a single burrow with the excavated earth piled into a mound of soil at the entrance. On average they dig 1.6 dens/ha. They generally dig new dens each day but occasionally reuse dens for more than one den. Usually for resting dens, badgers will deposit their droppings (that is scats) at the den entrance and in the burrow. Dens in which the female badger rears her young (that is natal dens) lack scat at the entrance. Females with pups may switch dens according to prey availability.
Diseases
Badgers may transmit plague among rodent colonies. They have transient infections exhibiting an antibody response. In one study 72-86% of the animals sampled were seropositive. They can contract canine distemper virus.
Situation at Grasslands Preserve: Course of Events*
Badgers and Prairie Dogs @ Other Sites*
Assessment:
Recommendations:
By Paul J. Polechla Jr., Ph.D., Sr. Ecologist
References:
Lindzey, F.G. 1978. Movement patterns of badgers in northwestern Utah. Journal of Wildlife Management 42:418-422.
Lindzey, F.G. 2003. Badger (Taxidea taxus). Pp. 683-691. In Wild mammals of North America. G.A. Feldhamer et al. (eds.) Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1216 pp.
Polechla, P.J. 1977-2008. Field notes and vertebrate catalogue. Unpaginated. 38 volumes.
Polechla, P.J. 2007. Gunnison’s prairie dog relocation project on the Grasslands Preserve of the West Mesa, Albuquerque Open Space, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Prairie Dog Pals, Albuquerque, NM, 25 pp.
* Initials of central New Mexico prairie dog biologists, volunteers, and naturalists include: DW = Dick Westphal, EU =Ed Urbanski, MeF = Megan Friggens, MiF = Michael Friggens, PE = Paul Eilers, PJP = Paul J. Polechla, PM = Paula Martin, and YB= Yvonne Boudreaux.