Passage IV

NATURAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from the essay “Prayer Dogs” by Terry Tempest Williams (©2005 by Creative Nonfiction Foundation).

Prairie dogs evolved in the Pleistocene era and now represent the last of the Great Frontier. Historically, prairie dog towns followed the bison, aerating the soil after the great stampedes. These towns could range in size from one to one thousand acres. Many in the Great Plains seemed to spread as far as the horizon. Within these communities are family units called coteries. A coterie, consisting of a single adult male, one to four adult females, and offspring up to two years old, can occupy a territory up to about an acre.

As above, so below. One could consider the double life of prairie dogs.

Above ground, prairie dog colonies literally change the land. Mounds created from the excavation of burrows may be two feet high and ten feet in diameter. These serve as lookout posts and will keep the burrows dry from rain. Prairie dogs' communication system is sophisticated.Biologists have identified twelve different vocalizations and a variety of postures and behavioral displays. One researcher studying a Utah prairie dog population near Bryce Canyon National Park noted specific calls, distinguishing between the calls made when a truck versus a coyote crossed into their territory.When danger is near, a series of barks occurs in a prairie dog chorus, often led by sentinel dogs guarding the periphery of the colony. The word spreads. They quickly scramble and scurry across the desert and disappear into nearby holes. When danger seems to have passed, a prairie dog will carefully emerge, look in all directions, then stand on its mound and throw back its head, with its hands raised in what looks like a gesture of prayer, and give what has been called a jump-yip call that the coast is clear.

It is also common to see prairie dogs engage in what looks like kissing. The“kiss" is used to distinguish one coterie member from another. When prairie dogs recognize each other, they will participate in elaborate grooming behavior. If one of the prairie dogs is an intruder, teeth may be bared, territory fought over, claimed, or reclaimed by dominant males. In most cases the outsider flees.

Below ground, a burrow will typically be three to six feet deep and about fifteen feet long, although the size varies tremendously, depending on the landscape. Prairie dogs will often dig small chambers to the side of the main burrow where they can listen to what is going on above. Deeper inside the burrows, they make nests out of grasses they have pulled under, where they will sleep, give birth, and care for their young (four is the norm) in spring, with the babies usually not emerging until June. Native grasses make up 70 to 95 percent of their diet during the summer, changing to seeds and insects, even roots, as fall and winter approach.

Prairie dogs create habitat not only for themselves but also for other grassland species. With their mounds and extensive burrowing systems (black-tailed prairie dogs typically have thirty to fifty burrow entrances per acre, while Gunnison's and white-tailed prairie dogs have fewer than twenty), their underground world is not simply the haunt of prairie dogs but home to myriad other creatures as well. One study of black-tailed prairie dogs identified more than 140 species of wildlife associated with prairie dog towns. In a grassland community historically tamped down by the weight of stampeding bison, burrowing prairie dogs loosen and aerate the soil, keeping the land supple. In the spring and summer, they also spend most of their time foraging above ground. A single prairie dog may consume two pounds of green grasses and forbs per week. Their hunger alters the landscape.

Prairie dogs' digging and scratching stimulates the soil, creating greater opportunities for seeds to germinate. With heightened water drainage due to the tunnels, plants grow. Plant diversity follows. Animal diversity follows the plants. Meadowlarks appear with an appetite for grasshoppers. Grasshopper sparrows appear in the abundance of seeds. Vacant or abandoned prairie dog burrows become the homes of cottontails, kangaroo rats, and deer mice. Burrowing owls, with their long, spindly legs, stand on the former mounds of prairie dogs with an eye for the multiplying mice. One successful life inspires another, creating the strength of a grassland community. If the prairie dog goes, so goes an entire ecosystem, including the black-footed ferret and burrowing owl, which now are endangered and threatened species. Prairie dogs create diversity.