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December 9, 2005

Plight of the Prairie Dog

I have always envisioned that the cowboy phrase "Git Along, Little Dogies" pertained to little prairie dogs scurrying under the horses' hooves. Can't you just see that visual? Like little lemmings... Of course, I was wrong. A dogie is a motherless calf.

Yeah, I know, you're shocked. How could I possibly be wrong? Especially after I was so sure at the age of 6 that the wedding vows including being someones "awful wedded wife". My father thought my mishearing of the word lawful was so terribly funny that he decided not to correct me for the longest time!

But anyway, this is about the REAL little doggies, the REAL deservers of the title: The North American Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs.

The North American Black-Tailed Prairie Dog is an icon of the Great Plains. These little critters live in prairie dog towns. But for generations, ranchers have fought them off, claiming they eat all the grass. They make dangerous holes for animals and people to fall in and twist their legs and need to be put down! (Think Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall - only in that case, it was barbed wire, which I'm pretty sure isn't the prairie dog's fault). In short, the prairie dog is a bona fide varmint!

Anyway, nowadays only two percent of the North American Black-Tailed Prairie Dog's habitat still remains. But now nature conservationalists are finding that the prairie dog not only needs land, but it can be a key species in the fight to restore and protect the Great Plains ecosystem, to keep its native plants intact. The little doggies also perform a similar service to worms - aerating the soil, not to mention fertilizing it...

The Nature Conservancy and its Mexican partner Pronatura Noreste today announced the purchase of a 46,000-acre cattle ranch in Mexico’s northern Janos Valley, one of North America’s last remaining desert grasslands and home to a variety of rare animals including the world’s largest complex of black-tailed prairie dog colonies.

...

Prairie dogs are vital to restoring the dwindling grasslands of the Chihuahuan desert. Scientists, in fact, refer to prairie dogs as the architects of North America’s grasslands. Prairie dogs gnaw through woody shrubs such as mesquite that would otherwise takeover the grassland habitat.

And as burrowing animals, they excavate tons of hard-baked desert soils, increasing the grounds’ fertility and improving foraging for cattle.

More At: Nature Conservancy - Purchase of 46,000-acre Mexican Ranch Will Protect Threatened Grasslands, Prairie Dogs

Posted by sorsha at December 9, 2005 9:03 PM