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