Dedicated to the Preservation of Prairie Dogs and their Habitat
Prairie dogs have scored a victory in Fort Collins, or at least their advocates have.
The City Council on Tuesday gave initial approval to a set of changes to the city’s Land Use Code aimed at giving prairie dogs more protection from development than they have enjoyed during the last 20 years.
Read More: Fort Collins
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An advocate called this morning (1/28) and reported seeing the first prairie dog emerge from hibernation at the NW Corner of Tramway and Lomas (Prairie Hills). This is a bit disturbing as the temperature this morning was 20F possibly warming to 40F later in the day. It is just TOO early. However, we do know that our gunnies can wake up for a snack and then go back into torpor if the weather is cold. We HOPE that’s the case, otherwise it will be a long spring season for our rescue crew. If any of our caregivers are of the mind to visit the lot, could you perhaps drop some carrots or grain down a few of the burrows? Also if you check the areas where you provide supplemental food for PD activity it would be appreciated. Thanks!
PS: The prairie dog pictured is a black tailed prairie dog in Colorado.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – Hundreds of buffalo are under quarantine in North Dakota and South Dakota after an illegal poison was used to kill prairie dogs.
An Environmental Protection Agency investigation earlier found 40,000 pounds of Rozol poison had been distributed across 5,400 acres on the former Cannonball Ranch near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the Wilder Ranch which straddles both states to the south.
Read More: Poison
As Larimer County officials work to start construction on the new county building at First Street and Denver Avenue in Loveland, some residents are advocating that the prairie dogs on site be relocated first.
For months, the Larimer County commissioners and the Loveland City Council members have been receiving emails from prairie dog advocates asking that the animals on site be located to another area, rather than poisoned and killed.
While prairie dogs are not considered a protected species, advocates argued that relocation provides many benefits.
Read More: Relocation
The article was sent to us by a prairie dog PAL. It is “We Were Made For These Times” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It is a good read in these troubling times. Kind Words
Passing stronger laws for animals takes ongoing dedication, planning, persistence, and plenty of voices from constituents like YOU! Join us for Animal Protection Lobby Day, and help make humane the new normal in 2017.
Our 2017 legislative priorities include banning traps and poisons on public lands and ending wildlife killing contests. We will continue to be vigilant in fighting against bills that are bad for animals, and supporting other pro-animal legislation.
9:00 AM- Registration & Refreshments (PERA Building)
10:00 AM- Citizen Lobbyist Training (PERA Building, Apodaca Hall)
11:30 AM- Lunch and Breakouts / Letter Writing Campaign (PERA Building)
1:00 PM- Group Photo on steps of PERA Building
1:30 PM- Deliver Letters to Your Legislators (Roundhouse)
2:30 PM- Press Conference / Guest Speakers (Roundhouse / Rotunda)
4:00 PM- Reception at APNM Santa Fe Office, 1111 Paseo de Peralta
Read more at: Lobby Day
We will begin our day at the P.E.R.A building, then make our way to the Roundhouse, finishing with a reception at the APV Santa Fe office.
Santa Fe, N.M. – In advance of the 2017 New Mexico legislative session, a coalition of non-profit wildlife advocacy organizations are hosting the United States premiere of a new documentary film to raise awareness, debunk myths and inspire action to end the cruel and senseless slaughter of wildlife in killing contests. By showing the film in several locations across the state, opponents of wildlife killing contests hope to grow active support among New Mexico citizens for impending legislation to end the barbaric death games targeting coyotes.
Read more at: Coyote
Another story of ranchers versus nature. Read more at: Explode!
The kindergarteners filed into the media center at Welcome Elementary School, then at their teacher’s direction they scooted and shuffled and sat on a floor rug all the while peeking at the assortment of Rubbermaid boxes, containers and small cages covered in blankets and towels, hiding the main focus of the event just out of view.
Standing at the front, wearing a khaki wide-brimmed hat and sporting a goatee with flecks of gray and brown hair that would flop over his eyes, Chuck Alberding greeted the students and explained the rules – they’d watch a short film (he’d shot, narrated and edited himself) then get on to the main attraction, the various creatures hiding from sight.
“Cool?” Alberding said with two thumbs up.
The video, purposely corny and featuring a high-pitched talking panda doll, introduced the students to a three-horned chameleon.
Then Alberding brought out Karma, his own three-horned chameleon. Bright green and six-inches long, the chameleon sat on a branch as Alberding placed a food morsel within striking distance. The children gathered in close to watch and “thwap” out came his tongue, long and lean, and grabbed the snack 8 inches away.
The students howled with laughter and asked for a repeat performance.
Alberding took the opportunity to talk about the chameleon’s characteristics – what they eat, where they live, how big they get – then he repeated demonstrations with his stock of reptiles, lizards and critters.
He showed off a water dragon named Moss, a veiled chameleon named Bob, a fire bellied toad named Demetri, a Pacman frog named Jabba and for his penultimate demonstration he brought out his personal favorites, prairie dogs named Amelia and Frederick.
Read more at: Geek
A group of advocates in Texas is working to protect the prairie dogs in the Lubbock area. Read their updates: Project Prairie Dog
Ranchers have known prairie dogs can reduce rangeland forage by as much as half, but prairie dogs may significantly increase the quality of forage that regrows, according to research by a University of Wyoming master’s degree student.
Read More at: Forage
Montana State Parks is moving ahead with a plan to reduce the population of prairie dogs at First People’s Buffalo Jump State Park, where burrowing by an expanding population is threatening to sink cultural resources. Read more at: Montana
The annual meeting for Prairie Dog Pals will be held on 5 February 2017 at 1:00 PM at the James Joseph Dwyer Memorial Police Substation at 12,700 Montgomery Blvd. NE. If you have any items you’d like to bring up, email prairiedogpals@comcast.net and they will be added to the agenda. See you there!
The U.S. National Park Service has been celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016.
Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th president, established the National Park Service in 1916 to “protect the wild and wonderful landscapes” in the United States.
But it is an earlier leader who is considered the father of the America’s national parks. In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt, America’s 26th president, signed the American Antiquities Act. The law permitted him – and future presidents – to take immediate action to protect important cultural or natural resources.
This is an extremely timely article as B. Obama just designated two areas in Utah as parks and there are those in the government that would seek to reverse this decision. In fact some would like to PRIVATIZE our public lands! In the words of Mark Twain: Buy land, they’re not making it anymore. And perhaps he wouldn’t mind if I changed that to PROTECT our lands, they’re not making anymore.
Anyway it is a very nice article with great pictures including, of course, prairie dogs. So check out the article at: PARKS
This article is obviously biased against prairie dogs, but does provide an insight into the mindset of farmers and ranchers. There are numerous studies documenting that prairie dogs do not compete with cattle for forage as there are numerous studies documenting the opposite. It is just a matter of who performed the study. I think the answer to this is that prairie dogs become an issue for farmers and ranchers AFTER farmers and ranchers have turned PRAIRIE into farms and ranches. Read the article at:Farms and Ranches
Read more at: HSUS
A new article by Rebecca Hopson, Paul Meiman, and Graeme Shannon was just published that looks at the role that prairie dogs play in the composition of urban and exurban rangelands. From the article’s abstract:
Rapid human population growth and habitat modification in the western United States has led to the formation of urban and exurban rangelands. Many of these rangelands are also home to populations of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). Our study aimed to compare the vegetation composition of an urban and exurban rangeland, and explore the role that prairie dogs play in these systems. The percent absolute canopy cover of graminoids (grasses and grass-likes), forbs, shrubs, litter, and bare ground were estimated at sampling areas located on and off prairie dog colonies at an urban and an exurban site. Herbaceous forage quality and quantity were determined on plant material collected from exclosure cages located on the colony during the entire growing season, while a relative estimate of prairie dog density was calculated using maximum counts. The exurban site had more litter and plant cover and less bare ground than the urban site. Graminoids were the dominant vegetation at the exurban plots. In contrast, mostly introduced forbs were found on the urban prairie dog colony. However, the forage quality and quantity tests demonstrated no difference between the two colonies. The relative prairie dog density was greater at the urban colony, which has the potential to drive greater vegetation utilization and reduced cover. Exurban rangeland showed lower levels of impact and retained all of the plant functional groups both on- and off-colony. These results suggest that activities of prairie dogs might further exacerbate the impacts of humans in fragmented urban rangeland habitats. Greater understanding of the drivers of these impacts and the spatial scales at which they occur are likely to prove valuable in the management and conservation of rangelands in and around urban areas.
Hopson et al. (2015), Rangeland dynamics: investigating vegetation composition and structure of urban and exurban prairie dog habitat. PeerJ 3:e736; DOI 10.7717/peerj.736
WildEarth Guardians just published Report from the Burrow: Forecast of the Prairie Dog 2015, by Taylor Jones. WildEarth Guardians releases a new report on the state of the prairie dog each year on Groundhog Day in order to let the public know how this important, and embattled, species is doing, and how well the state and federal agencies who manage and protect the prairie dog are doing their jobs.
To download this year’s report, click here.
One of our Prairie Dog Pals, Dr. Paul Polechla, is putting together a program to reintroduce prairie dogs to the Guadalupe Mountain National Park. Prairie Dog Pals is supporting the effort and ask that you do too! Check it out on Facebook!
By Vanessa Kahin
Staff writer
vkahin@cnjonline.com
Loathed, protested and even poisoned — Clovis’ prairie dogs appear to be dwindling, but it may have more to do with Mother Nature than anything humankind has perpetrated.
Local environmentalist Susan Hubby — who protested the Clovis City Commission’s decision to poison the prairie dogs at Ned Houk Park last year — said that drought may be the reason behind what she perceives to be fewer prairie dogs in the area.
“Many did not make it this season from the drought,” she said, adding that recent rains may help prairie dogs’ plant food source to grow.
Read More: Drought
GUNNISON, Colo. – Work to protect the Gunnison’s prairie dog by Colorado Parks and Wildlife has proven successful during the last four years and biologists are continuing with more research to improve methods to sustain populations.
“In some situations prairie dogs can be seen as pests, but they are critical in the environment and help to promote survival of numerous other species such as burrowing owls, badgers and raptors,” said Dan Tripp, a wildlife disease researcher with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
In Colorado there are three species of prairie dogs. The Gunnison’s prairie dog resides primarily in the southwest portion of the state. The others are the white-tailed prairie dog which lives mainly in northwestern Colorado, and the black-tailed prairie dog which inhabits areas along the Front Range and eastern plains.
Plague, caused by a non-native bacteria carried by fleas, has been identified as a threat to the stability of Gunnison’s prairie dog populations in Colorado. Outbreaks of plague frequently kill every prairie dog in a colony. To treat the sickness, agency scientists are spraying prairie dog burrows with a flea-killing pesticide powder. Researchers are also testing the efficiency of oral vaccination baits for preventing plague in animals. Even though researchers are conducting trials to develop potentially useful vaccinations, such tests and investigations require government funding to be carried out. Several steps in the procedure necessitate the purchase of 25l distilled water in bulk in order to clean the equipment, such as beakers, test tubes, and other lab apparatus. Aside from that, funds are required to purchase chemicals and drugs for testing. That is why it is always said that with government support only, vaccines for different illnesses, including the plague, may be effectively created.
It’s interesting to know that the bacteria that causes plague was transported to North America around 1900 and was subsequently found in Colorado around 1940. Because prairie dogs did not evolve with the bacteria, they carry little immunity to fight off the disease.
“The plague bacteria is a non-native invasive species that devastates prairie dogs and other wildlife species. We’re not attempting to upset nature’s balance with these treatments. We are working to restore balance in the environment and reduce the risk of major plague outbreaks in prairie dog colonies,” Tripp said. “We lose a lot of resilience in the environment when we lose prairie dogs.”
Controlling plague in prairie dogs may also help limit potential exposure to people and their pets.
In 2010, CPW biologists started dusting some burrows in the Gunnison Basin with an insecticide that kills fleas. The experiment has worked. In some cases, nearby colonies that were not dusted were wiped out by plague while colonies that were dusted remain healthy. Biologists also said that they’re seeing many more prairie dogs in more areas in the basin this year compared to five years ago.
Although the insecticide is not harmful to other species, applying it is labor intensive and expensive. For dusting to be effective every burrow in a colony must receive an application annually.
A potentially promising treatment is the oral sylvatic plague vaccine, Tripp said. Developed by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center, the vaccine-still in the experimental stage-works well in the laboratory. It is administered in a cube flavored with peanut butter. The baits also contain a red dye that adheres to animals’ coats which helps researchers track the prairie dogs that eat the bait. This is only the second year that the vaccine has been tested in the field in Colorado. Longer term monitoring will be needed to determine its efficacy.
“So far, we’re encouraged by the results and we are optimistic that the vaccine will be effective in limiting future plague outbreaks,” Tripp said.
In the Gunnison area, four prairie dog colonies are being used for vaccine testing. Two colonies are receiving the vaccine bait, two are receiving no treatment. In Teller County the test is being conducted with two colonies.
The vaccine is also being tested in Arizona, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. The experiment will continue for another two years and is a collaborative effort among more than 30 federal, state and tribal agencies and nongovernmental organizations.
In Colorado, the vaccine research in Gunnison’s prairie dogs is occurring on public land-state wildlife areas, BLM and National Park Service property.
Contrary to public perception, prairie dogs don’t reproduce prolifically. Females have only one litter of 3-5 pups each year and the natural mortality rate of the young is about 50 percent. Consequently, the colonies generally do not spread rapidly over wide areas. Tripp explained that few connections between colonies across a landscape exist; so when a colony is wiped out it may have little chance of being re-colonized.
“By preventing plague we can have healthy, stable prairie dog colonies that we can manage on public lands,” Tripp said.
The conservation work is aimed at preserving the ecological niche of prairie dogs and preventing a listing of the Gunnison’s prairie dog under the federal Endangered Species Act. If the animal is listed it could lead to various land-use restrictions.
J Wenum, area wildlife manager in Gunnison, explained that when landscapes are restored to a more natural condition, more uses can be accommodated.
“If you have healthy, functioning landscapes you don’t have to be focused on limiting uses,” Wenum said. “A healthy landscape will accommodate agriculture, recreation and wildlife.”
The testing of the oral vaccine will continue for a few more years, and biologists are cautiously optimistic that the vaccine will prove to be effective at limiting plague.
“We won’t be able to prevent plague in every colony. But this work will help to stabilize the overall population at its current distribution and benefit this important species,” Tripp said.
For more information about prairie dogs and other wildlife species, see cpw.state.co.us.
New Mexico has 150 known species of mammals, one of the highest numbers in the country. Eighty-two species of mammals are known to be hosts of fleas. We have 107 species of fleas in New Mexico.
We have plenty of mammals and plenty of fleas. This can be a big worry for homeowners who may get fleas into their homes if a prairie dog comes into their home or they have had contact with a person who has unknowingly transported them into their house. If this was to happen then calling in a pest control company like https://www.pestcontrolexperts.com/local/alabama/ or one in closer proximity, will help them get rid of these fleas and keep their house safe from a severe infestation.
Several dogs in New Mexico have been diagnosed with plague. Plague is primarily a disease of wild animals, especially rodents. Some species are particularly susceptible. Prairie dogs, particularly the Gunnison’s prairie dog, are uniformly susceptible to fatal infections of the plague, and large proportions or even entire populations have been destroyed in a single plague event.
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is of Old World origin and throughout history has been referred to as “Black Death.”
Plague was first discovered in North America from California ground squirrels in 1905 and first detected in New Mexico rodents in 1938. As of 1982, 18 species of rodents, two species of rabbits and nine species of carnivores have been infected by plague in New Mexico.
Plague is spread by fleas. The normal cycle of plague transmission is between wild rodents and their fleas in nature. When fleas ingest bacteria along with blood from infected rodents, the bacteria multiply rapidly in the gut of the flea. New Mexico has a high case rate of plague. For example, during 1988-2002, 112 human cases of plague were reported from 11 Western states. The majority, 97, of the cases were in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico and 48 of those cases were from New Mexico.
Read More: Bugman
No matter where you look on the grounds of the Plains Conservation Center, a black-tailed prairie dog will probably be looking back at you.
Read more: Pueblo Chieftain
The City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Department wants to reintroduce the federally endangered black-footed ferret to manage the prairie dog colonies at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area north of Fort Collins.
But first, the city needs approval from the state, after receiving the go-ahead from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013. On Saturday, Gov. John Hickenlooper will attend a signing ceremony at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery to sign a bill allowing the native black-footed ferret to be brought into Soapstone Prairie and Meadow Springs Ranch, both owned by Fort Collins. The ceremony will be at 11 a.m.
The black-footed ferret, a rare indigenous mammal with perky ears and a black mask of fur, relies on prairie dogs for its main food source and resides in prairie dog burrows.
“Without prairie dogs, you don’t have ferrets,” said Daylan Figgs, senior environmental planner for the Natural Areas Department.
Read More: Ferrets
Wild mustangs are an invasive species in the American West. But, then, so are all the humans living here who are not of American Indian descent.
The wild lands in Utah and other Western states where wild horses now roam are fragile and arid — places easily endangered by encroaching, rapidly multiplying horses numbering in the thousands and tens of millions of people who are multiplying even faster and doing more to threaten the land.
Humans have all but obliterated many of the native plant and animal species, including wolves, buffalo, beaver, otters, sage grouse, tortoises, prairie dogs and myriad varieties of plants and even fish.
Running cattle on fragile public land causes more harm than wild horses do, but the humans who have taken over this part of the globe do not want to share scarce feed with animals they cannot work, sell or butcher.
Read More: Public Land
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
Spring marks the annual beginning of an increasingly popular non-lethal method of removing 
unwanted prairie dogs: Relocation of entire segments to more suitable and protected habitat.
But the job isn’t for sissies or the faint of heart, because there is a huge amount of work and preparation involved, with a variety of associated challenges, including potentially fatal consequences for a number of prairie dogs—sometimes even if the job is done by experts.
Read More: Relocation
Why did the prairie dog cross the road? Possibly to get to Boot Hill Ranch Estates.
At the April 9 meeting of the Custer County Commission, Les McClanahan, a Boot Hill resident, came before the commission to express his and his neighbors’ uneasiness with a prairie dog town that has grown on land south of Hwy. 16 across from Boot Hill. The land is sandwiched between American Presidents Resort and Granite Heights Drive. McClanahan wondered if the county had any authority to eliminate prairie dogs on private land.
Read More: Boot Hill
Cute is not a reason to go on living in the grander evolutionary scheme of things, but it must count for 
something. People love prairie dogs, even if they are next thing to a rat.
Michael Burns never expected to be walking around the plaza dressed in a big, fuzzy, buff-colored costume on the Saturday after Earth Day, hugging children and carrying a cardboard placard that said “Prairie dog family values.” The 36-year-old self-employed salesman who moved to Santa Fe from Portland, Ore. about four years ago, said he never thought much about prairie dogs until recently.
Read More: Daze
Getting up before dawn never appealed to Penn State 
senior Elyse McMahon, but last summer it was exactly what she wanted to be doing. From June to August, her days began early with trapping and handling endangered Utah prairie dogs for data collection.
The wildlife and fisheries science major headed west to be part of a study to determine if a new type of bait containing a trial vaccine could help eliminate the sylvatic plague in prairie dogs. Students collected data that U.S. Geological Survey employees analyzed.
Read More: Student
A new Prairie Dog Management Plan for Devils Tower National Monument is now being put into place after a “Finding of No Significant Impact” report was recently finalized.
The plan will implement an adaptive strategy for the management of the black tailed prairie dog, according to a news release from the Devils Tower staff.
The plan aims to maintain a healthy prairie dog population, protect Monument resources and infrastructure, and ensure human health and safety.
Read more: Devil’s Tower
Should animal cognition be considered by lawmakers for conservation policies? Many scientists believe it should.
The Humane Society Institute for Science & Policy is sponsoring a symposium next week in Washington, D.C., entitled “The Science of Animal Thinking and Emotion: Sentience as a Factor in Policy and Practice.”
Excerpt from the website:
Science is making stunning discoveries about animal cognition, awareness and emotion. How can we leverage this information for positive change in government and industry? This two-day conference brings together thought-leaders in the science and implications of animal sentience, and influential voices in the policy and corporate domains. As the bedrock of ethics, sentience deserves a more prominent place in the legislative and corporate landscape.
Read more at: Cognition
Black-footed ferrets are one of the most endangered mammals in the world and their recovery efforts include 
a multi-agency captive breeding and reintroduction program. From 1991 to 2010, more than 3,000 captive-reared ferrets were reintroduced at 19 sites across North America. The captive-breeding program has successfully saved ferrets from extinction, but maintaining the captive population and producing kits for reintroduction is expensive. Furthermore, survival rates of captive-reared ferrets are lower than those of wild-born kits.
In an effort to help boost the survival of wild-born black-footed ferrets, scientists with the USDA-APHIS National Wildlife Research Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the University of Montana recently tested the effectiveness and feasibility of electric fencing to protect young ferrets from coyote predation at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana.
Researchers fenced portions of two prairie dog colonies within the wildlife refuge in order to exclude coyotes from areas inhabited by adult female ferrets and their litters. Results showed the electric fencing was an effective tool for reducing coyote activity in the study area and researchers observed a 22 percent higher survival rate for ferret kits living in protected areas versus unprotected areas. However, the fencing was not perfect and coyotes were found inside the fenced area on three occasions.
The cost for the fencing and its installation were approximately $7,200 per mile. Maintenance and monitoring costs for 2 months were an additional $1,025 per mile. Based on these numbers, researchers estimate that a 20–30 percent increase in the survival rate of wild-born kits would cost around $4,500 per ferret kit over 10 years. That cost drops to around $2,100 per ferret kit, if monitoring is done using volunteers and donated or borrowed vehicles. This study provides decisionmakers with valuable information for comparing the costs of breeding ferrets in captivity versus improving the survival of existing wild-born ferrets.
Read more: Ferrets
We need to raise $2500 to purchase microchips for the 2014 season; Just $50 buys 10 microchips!
Read more: Emma
Meet the prairie dog. These beautiful animals are true angels of God. They live in little villages and mind their 
own business. They do not destroy any crops and do not carry any diseases even though they are constantly blamed for spreading the plague. In reality, plague fleas (genus Oropsylla) can live on other animals such as squirrels, pack rats and other rodents and even breed in their burrows. When plague fleas get into prairie dog villages, they kill the prairie dogs. If you have a colony of prairie dogs near your home, they are healthy and do not have plague fleas. That is a myth perpetuated by people who do not know any better or who just want to kill them. They do not cripple horses and cattle as some other people claim. Most horses and cattle watch where they are walking and can easily go around a very visible prairie dog village. If a horse is ridden fast through an unknown area, an accident could happen. It is the responsibility of the horse owner to know where they are going on the horse. It isn’t the prairie dogs’ fault.
Read more: Bugman
Abstract
Plague, a zoonotic disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, causes high rates of mortality in prairie dogs (Cynomys spp.). An oral vaccine against plague has been developed for prairie dogs along with a palatable bait to deliver vaccine and a biomarker to track bait consumption. We conducted field trials between September 2009 and September 2012 to develop recommendations for bait distribution to deliver plague vaccine to prairie dogs. The objectives were to evaluate the use of the biomarker, rhodamine B, in field settings to compare bait distribution strategies, to compare uptake of baits distributed at different densities, to assess seasonal effects on bait uptake, and to measure bait uptake by nontarget small mammal species. Rhodamine B effectively marked prairie dogs’ whiskers during these field trials. To compare bait distribution strategies, we applied baits around active burrows or along transects at densities of 32, 65, and 130 baits/ha. Distributing baits at active burrows or by transect did not affect uptake by prairie dogs. Distributing baits at rates of ≥65/ha (or ≥1 bait/active burrow) produced optimal uptake, and bait uptake by prairie dogs in the autumn was superior to uptake in the spring. Six other species of small mammals consumed baits during these trials. All four species of tested prairie dogs readily consumed the baits, demonstrating that vaccine uptake will not be an obstacle to plague control via oral vaccination.
More: Plague
Rep. Doc Hastings recently released a report and a set of proposals that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA), severely curtailing the act’s ability to protect the nation’s most imperiled species. He calls it ESA “reform,” but the real goal of Rep. Hastings’ proposals is to drastically weaken or eliminate key protections in the ESA, long a goal of corporate special interests and polluters.
Read More: Defenders
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A law that gives Nebraska counties the power to manage black-tailed prairie dog populations was targeted for repeal Tuesday by the state’s longest-serving senator, a staunch animal rights activist.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers presented a repeal measure to a legislative committee, saying he would have fought to block the law had he been in the Legislature when it passed in 2012. Chambers was forced out of the Legislature due to term limits but returned to office last year.
Read more: Nebraska
By LARRY PHILLIPS
• Leader & Times
Though many people, including children, adore prairie dogs because of their cute, furry looks, cities and counties classify them as a nuisance and deal with them accordingly.
Liberal and Seward County are no different.
After numerous phone calls to the L&T asking what happened to the prairies dogs that lived just south of the railroad tracks on Pershing Avenue, L&T contacted the city.
The city has admitted the prairie dogs were poisoned in an attempt to control them from spreading throughout the area.
read more: Pershing
CARLSBAD — With their little colony dwindling away — there were just three of the original residents left — the Prairie Dog Village at Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park was ready to receive the immigrants.
There are 24 of the new rodents, and they arrived here in October, said Holly Payne, head curator at the Living Desert.
Read More: Living Desert
The Chattanooga Zoo partnered with students and faculty in the UTC Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and College of Engineering to renovate the Zoo’s existing prairie dog exhibit.
The original prairie dog exhibit, home to five prairie dogs, was built in 1998. This exhibit is approximately 400 square feet in size and contains two chest-high observation windows. UTC Engineering students have redesigned the exhibit to incorporate a children’s viewing tunnel which will allows children to get eye level with their prairie dog counterparts through the creation of a viewing space within the actual exhibit.
Read More: Chattanooga
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.
Prairie dogs, those little furry critters populating parts of Clovis, are getting a new home and a free bubble bath 
courtesy of the folks at Eco Solutions of Santa Fe.
Read more at: Eco Solutions
(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
JEFFERSON COUNTY —The Ken-Caryl Ranch Master Association is exploring options for dealing with the prairie dog population near the community’s Manor House property.
The more than 40-acre space near the Manor House, 1 Manor House Road, has seen an increase in the prairie dog population and some residents are glad the master association is beginning to take action.
“The whole purpose of open space is to protect it. When prairie dogs take over and destroy it, it has the opposite effect,” resident Marian Miaskiewicz said. Miaskiewicz’s property backs up to the Manor House open space and she said that there are several prairie dog holes in her backyard. She also said that they attract other animals such as snakes.
Sometimes just trying to get along with a difficult neighbor can make us prisoners in our own homes. It can lead us 
to do things that go against our stated intentions and interests. That seems to be the situation right now for the Thunder Basin National Grassland, a 547,000-acre protected area in northeastern Wyoming.
The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the Grassland, has announced a plan to poison an estimated 16,000 prairie dogs and dramatically shrink the already limited area in which prairie dogs are tolerated. Thunder Basin officials intend to do it despite their declared plans to improve prairie dog habitat. Their method, moreover, is likely to kill a lot of other wildlife in the affected area and, incidentally, squander taxpayer dollars for nothing.
Read more at: Slaughter
The hot seat just got hotter for the rogue agency that’s responsible for the cruel and indiscriminate killing of millions of animals every year in the U.S., following a request for an investigation and congressional review made by two senators.
Wildlife Services (WS) began as Animal Damage Control, which started out killing pests and added predators to its list of targets in 1914. The agency has since expanded its services and has continued killing hundreds of thousands of native animals every year under the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
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 have their own version of a stadium wave, known as the “jump-yip,” which helps them connect with 
others and assess their alertness, new research finds.
Enjoy the video: Jump Yip
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general will investigate a federal agency whose mission is to exterminate birds, coyotes, mountain lions and other animals that threaten the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers.
The investigation of U.S. Wildlife Services is to determine, among other things, “whether wildlife damage management activities were justified and effective.” Biologists have questioned the agency’s effectiveness, arguing that indiscriminately killing more than 3 million birds and other wild animals every year is often counterproductive.
Read more: Wildlife
Conservation groups are criticizing a proposal to reduce the amount of land protected for prairie dogs in the Thunder Basin National Grassland.
The U.S. Forest Service is considering shrinking the acreage of protected land, largely because ranchers have concerns about livestock being injured in prairie dog holes and acquiring diseases.
But Steve Forrest with Defenders of Wildlife says reducing the prairie dog population could create problems for other wildlife. For example, he says it would hamper efforts to re-introduce endangered species like black-footed ferrets, because the ferrets almost exclusively eat prairie dogs.
Read More: WPM
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the availability of the black-footed ferret Revised Recovery Plan. The black-footed ferret was historically found throughout the Great Plains, mountain basins and semi-arid grasslands of North America wherever prairie dogs occurred. The species is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
The ferret’s close association with prairie dogs is an important factor in its decline. From the late 1800s to approximately the 1960s, conversion of native grasslands to cropland as well as poisoning and disease dramatically reduced prairie dog numbers. The ferret population declined as a result.
Read more: Cortez Journal
Washington, DC – WildEarth Guardians will challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) refusal to protect the Gunnison’s prairie dog under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service recently denied the species protection despite a documented 95 percent decline since the early 1900s and numerous ongoing threats.
“Failure to list the Gunnison’s prairie dog is contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Act,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “The Service is tying itself in knots to avoid listing this keystone species, cherry picking science while ignoring the species’ precipitous decline.”
Read more: WildEarth Guardians
Conservation and animal welfare organizations have joined forces to submit written comments urging the U.S. Forest Service to consider an alternative plan to poison prairie dog colonies on Wyoming’s Thunder Basin National Grassland within ¼ mile of private or state land.
The Humane Society of the United States, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, WildEarth Guardians and others are leaders in this initiative that would save an estimated 16,000 prairie dogs.
In 2009, after years of planning and public input, officials set aside 85,000 acres in the Thunder Basin National Grassland as an area where prairie dogs would be protected from poisons and shooting. Today, this area contains the best prairie dog habitat on any National Grassland in America, but the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed plan would shrink this protected area by 22,000 acres.
Lindsey Sterling Krank, director of the Prairie Dog Coalition of The HSUS stated, “The Forest Service has to find a non-lethal and humane way to manage prairie dogs on Thunder Basin rather than spending taxpayer dollars on poison. The public and our nation’s wildlife deserve better.”
Read more: HSUS
DENVER | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that their 157-page Black-footed ferret Revised 
Recovery Plan is now available.
The Black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) was historically found throughout the Great Plains, mountain basins, and semi-arid grasslands of North America wherever prairie dogs occurred, according to a news release from the federal agency.
The species is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Read more at: Ferrets
Dressed in long pants, long-sleeve shirts and closed-toed shoes, a team of researchers from Colorado Parks and Wildlife 
gathered in a sagebrush-grass meadow near Gunnison, Colo. this summer, each with a GPS in hand. Lining up 10 meters apart along the border of a virtual grid, they walked straight lines over a Gunnison’s prairie dog colony and dropped quarter-sized peanut butter cubes behind them. It was one of three Gunnisons colonies where the delectable cubes became just a treat for any animal that found them, but at another three, the cubes contained a vaccine against sylvatic plague, which has ravaged the West’s prairie dog populations.
Read more: Plague
On farms and ranches across America, prairie dogs are target practice.
In the city of Santa Fe, the furry little critters get bubble baths, leftover Big Macs and protection under an ordinance requiring their “humane relocation” if they live on property slated for commercial construction.
Even the city government, which has a statue of its patron saint in front of City Hall making eye contact with a prairie dog, is loath to hurt the burrowing rodents.
Since the ordinance passed in 2001, the city has incurred $559,000 in relocation costs, much to the chagrin of one city councilor.
Read more: Santa Fe
Read more: Abq Journal
If we abandon the old paradigm that we are intrinsically different and superior to all other life forms, it’s possible to look at animals with greater respect and, like Denise Herzing, start working towards decoding their language. — Con Slobodchikoff
Check it out: Slobodchikoff
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
The Humane Society of the United States have just released an ADORABLE new clip called “Cute & Playful Prairie Dogs,” in which these wonderful creatures can be seen scurrying around their lands, foraging for food, and saying hello to the camera!
Check it out at: PD Video
The region of the American Prairie Reserve encompasses two national wildlife refuges. This is an area of Montana with dramatic cliffs cut by the Missouri River and rugged, wooded terrain housing mountain lions, elk and big horn sheep. As you move up from 
the river and north across the prairie, an expansive network of ecologically important prairie dog towns come into view. With 90% of ferret diets consisting of prairie dogs, the sight and sound of these important animals is encouraging. As Damien notes below, this area is one of just a handful of critical ferret reintroduction efforts in North America. – Sean Gerrity
Read more at: Ferret
After several months of back and forth between a citizens group and city commissioners, a request to relocate prairie dogs to a county in Texas was tabled indefinitely Thursday by the Clovis City Commission.
Clovis is at it again. Look at this comment:
According to Lansford: “I would like to stop the policy of even considering the relocation of prairie dogs,” he said. “We need to quit the discussion. We need a city policy that basically just says we don’t relocate prairie dogs period.”
Read more at: Lansford
At the 4 December 2013 Business Meeting, Valencia County Commissioners voting down a resolution, 3 to 2, opposing animal killing contests.
The resolution, which merely reflected the OPINION of the Commission, would have made the county the first in New Mexico to oppose animal killing contests. The majority of the packed house spoke in favor of the resolution with very few people speaking in dissent. Those in support frequently expressed compassion, respect for nature, and concern for public safety as compelling reasons for the resolution. One supporter mentioned a term that seems to be growing in popularity renaming the county as “Violencia.”
It is unfortunate that a majority of commissioners chose an “avoid controversy” approach, but we can only hope that someday perhaps more enlightened commissioners will choose the more compassionate approach.
Our thanks go out to Commissioner Alicia Aguilar who initiated the Resolution, and to Charles Eaton who supported it.
As Ghandi said: “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Dec. 4, 2013 — Mating with more than one male increases reproductive success for female prairie dogs, despite an increase in risks. This is according to a new study published in The Journal of Mammalogy by behavioral ecologist John Hoogland, Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Appalachian Laboratory.
Read More at: Mating
Or even more at: Science
Wildlife conflicts are a real problem in some communities, but hunting is not the solution. Whether the problem is deer eating tulips or colliding with cars, Lyme disease, or bears getting into garbage, there is always an effective, nonlethal way to handle it.
I am sending this urgently to you all because this 18th century “solution” does not belong in the 21st century! I am asking EVERYONE who reads this to write to Time and challenge this guy’s assumptions, information, credentials, WHATEVER! I am APPALLED to read such a treatise for killing in this day and age!
However, I think Non Sequitur had it nailed! 
You can read the time article at: TIME
