Prairie Dog Pals

Dedicated to the Preservation of Prairie Dogs and their Habitat

Prairie Dogs Play Vital Role in Grasslands

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From the Billings Gazette:

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.

Long before trappers, explorers and settlers arrived, much of the prairie had  already been formed — not by cattle or hikers who didn’t stay on the trail, but  by millions of animals, namely buffalo, elk and deer. These animals, in  incredible herds that now only exist in hunters dreams, nearly deforested the  entire Midwest. The buffalo also have another purpose in plains ecology: to  wallow. Wallowing is when a buffalo rolls around on its back, creating a depression in the ground. This depression allowed water to collect, providing  water for other animals and allowing plant life to flourish. It also allows  water to flow directly to the water table. Without these massive herds, the  water falls onto hard ground and quickly evaporates.

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.