In Colorado, many people hate prairie dogs. Since they are easy to poison, the acreage tunnelled by prairie dogs is estimated to be about 2% of what it used to be: 98% (or more) of the prairie dogs have already been removed. Prairie dog tunnels provides homes for burrowing owls, rabbits, tortoises, and many other species. Since prairie dogs are prey, their eradication has been a problem for predators like kit foxes, eagles, hawks, and literally dozens of other animals who relied on their towns for food. Prairie dogs alter the landscape and provide a variation in habitat that many landowners dislike. Buffalo and pronghorn graze preferentially in prairie dog towns, but cattlemen hate ‘em.
This photo is taken in the midst of a prairie dog town at about 7,500 feet on top of a mesa, a flat-topped mountain, in a vacant lot at the entrance of Fort Lewis College. All that naked earth in the background is prairie dog territory, and there’s a prairie dog tunnel entrance and mound in the foreground. The dead thistle at the left is an alien species that grows about 3 feet tall and no one eats.
Every time I drive by this town, I see prairie dogs doing interesting things and a hawk or two overhead. I thought it’d be dead easy to get some good photos, but I was wrong. I spent 45 minutes lying in the dirt on the edge of the prairie dog town, and the only thing I got was windburned and sunburned. So I got back in my car, and a prairie dog popped out: as a human, I’m a predator, but as a car I’m invisible.
I saw prairie dogs at two speeds– very very still, and super fast. See how small this guy is compared to the size of his mound?
and so beautifully camouflaged that
I couldn’t tell if you could see him.
There were two prairie dogs that were chasing each other out one hole and into another, scampering along like a streak.
they’re almost flying
chasing each other close as can be
and here those two kids have all eight feet off the ground at once.
Those kids. I don’t know where they get their energy.
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