Prairie dogs have a bad reputation, and this is why:
The foreground shows a nice stand of native grasses and flowers–see the last few purple asters of the season? A little prairie dog town starts where the grasses stop, and the land is stripped to nubbins of grass and bare earth. That big dark green plant growing on bare earth is an alien species of thistle that nothing eats, so it looks as though the prairie dogs remove good grasses and grow noxious weeds. No one wants these rodents around, and they’re easy to remove with poison.
Today prairie dog towns are as rare as old growth forests: they cover about 2% of their original range. They are (depending on the state) variously classified as threatened or “a species of special concern”. But since there are still thousands of prairie dogs and they make a mess of the landscape, they are typically not tolerated on private or public land. It’s the only rare species I know of that is routinely shot and poisoned.
Cute!
Meanwhile, every rancher knows that all grass is not created equal. Young, tender growth is higher in protein than tall grass. Buffalo and antelope graze preferentially on prairie dog towns because the clipped grass in prairie dog towns provides higher quality feed. From the 1976 on, studies show that cattle grazing on prairie dog towns gain weight at appropriate rates.
This is because the amount of vegetation grown on an acre of land is not fixed. There is not x amount of grass that can be divided up by the grazers (so more prairie dogs mean less grass for cattle). Prairie dogs increase the production of grasses and leafy plants by increasing soil moisture, increasing the amount of organic matter mixed into the soil, and by keeping the area fertilized and clipped.
When prairie dogs engineer the landscape, the land’s net primary productivity (roughly the mass of plants grown per acre per year) increases. Prairie dogs alter local hydrology in ways that keep more water on the land, increasing soil moisture. Even though it looks like the prairie dogs ate everything, the land itself is more productive so their net impact is close to zero. This has been known for 35 years–more than a generation–and these studies have been replicated time and again. But ranchers say, that’s old research,
and the poisoning continues.
oh, the patience you had to take these photos! With that sentinel on duty to keep track of you. Wonderful,clear information about the good they do to the land. you are an ardent advocate of theirs.