Reintroducing Prairie Dogs into Desert Grasslands

Abstract

ecosystem on two sites p rairie dogs (Cynomys spp.) historically occupied much of the short-grass regions of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West from Canada to Mexico (Hall, 1981:412-415). Early naturalists found that prairie dogs were a conspicuous part of the grassland biota, some estimating them to number into the billions (Foster and Hygnstrom, undated). But during the last hundred years they have declined to a small fraction of their original abundance because of poisoning programs and later from infection with the introduced bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes sylvatic plague (Miller et al., 1994). Early travelers and settlers encountered the black-tailed prairie dog (C. ludovicianus), the most abundant and widespread of the four species found in the United States, over much of the shortgrass region of the Great Plains and southwestern deserts (Fig. 1). It symbolized early western grasslands as prominently as bison (Bison bison) or pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana). But by 1990, this once-common animal had dwindled to a remnant of its original numbers (Miller et al., 1994). Current interest in the recovery of prairie dogs matches, in intensity if not in general popularity, that of the early ranchers and government agents in eradicating them. Two recent collections of papers (Clark et al., 1989; Oldemeyer et al., 1993), both assembled by agency effort, and a technical book (Hoogland, 1995) at-