While traveling through Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico on a ten-day motorcycle trip three summers ago, taking in some of our indigenous American history, we checked into a motel just south of Moab in the late afternoon.
As we got settled in to our room, my friend called me over to the window overlooking a field at the back of the building. There we saw a magical prairie dog colony. I was delighted as a little kid, watching the babies run and frolic, turning somersaults and racing off to one hole then popping up out of another! This was far better than anything one could find on TV.
Naturally, this experience inspired me to research these playful little fellows.
Prairie dogs are robust little rodents, the most social of the squirrel family. They have developed these social skills to enable them to live in large communities since there is some safety in numbers.
Their habitat covers the whole southwest of the U.S. plus parts of northern Mexico which is also home to many of their predators. These include: hawks, eagles, owls, ravens, badgers, bobcats, weasels, ferrets, snakes and humans, some of which hunt them right inside their own burrows, which are called “towns.” In the past, one colony is known to have been home to over a million dogs. Today their population has been diminished by 98% due to predators and disease. There are a few protected colonies now, thank goodness.
These many perils have caused the prairie dog to develop a very complex language. This allows them to not only warn the others of danger, but to specify which predator and even its exact features.
Their little towns include long tunnels with many exits and different rooms, including bathrooms, nurseries and food stores which are always being tended to and cleaned.
A typical family group usually consists of one male, four to five females and their offspring. The females often nurse each others’ babies. As the young ones mature, they move on and set up their own town, not far from their original town, to allow room for the newest youngsters to grow up.
I grew up in the northeast, where we had groundhogs, which are larger than the prairie dog and more solitary. They also live in burrows, but have single family burrows as opposed to towns and colonies. Seeing this group in the wild firsthand was a unique and treasured experience for me. I am happy that some are being protected so the species does not become extinct.
Cate Drown, certified Sumerel Therapy technician, specializing in equines, can be contacted at drown_cate@hotmail.com