A Cronkite News Service Weekend Special
Black-tailed prairie dogs clawing their way back in southern Arizona
NOTE: This story moved Tuesday, Oct. 28. We recommend it for weekend use.
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By ANDREW J. SHAINKER
Cronkite News Service
SONOITA _ Popping out of its burrow, a black-tailed prairie dog seems a natural part of this grass-covered expanse.
It would seem natural, that is, if the hole into its burrow weren’t a plastic tube. Or if a cage weren’t keeping it from going anywhere fast. Or if two people from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, camping nearby, weren’t keeping an eye on it through binoculars.
Nearly 50 years after the black-tailed prairie dog was poisoned, shot and trapped out of existence in this area, the creature is clawing its way back into southern Arizona.
Seventy-four black-tailed prairie dogs were brought here in early October from a ranch in New Mexico. They’re starting out in acclimation pens on 10 acres of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, 45 miles southeast of Tucson.
While not everyone around here celebrating their arrival, Game and Fish biologist Kyle McCarty said prairie dogs are key to this area’s environment.
“There are so many false perceptions of black-tailed prairie dogs,” McCarty said. “Many people don’t understand these animals are actually beneficial to our ecosystem.”
It’s the prairie dog’s ability to dig _ and dig and dig _ that benefits the environment, he said. Prairie dog burrows aerate the soil, help water reach aquifers faster and provide habitats for other species, and the creatures’ waste fertilizes the rangeland grasses on which prairie dogs and cattle feed.
“People realized it was a huge mistake to exterminate these animals,” said Bill Van Pelt, a Game and Fish program manager in charge of the reintroduction. “Just because something was done historically does not make it right.”
The black-tailed prairie dog, which once was endangered but has come back in other areas, is native to 11 western states and parts of Mexico and Canada. The group brought here was selected because it’s similar genetically to the population that once existed in Arizona.
McCarty said the prairie dogs’ new home was chosen for its rich soil and rolling hills, which resemble an area in Mexico that has one of the largest populations of black-tailed prairie dogs.
“This land has given these prairie dogs the best possible chance for survival,” McCarty said. “The soil and vegetation is just ideal.”
The artificial burrows are only temporary accommodations. The new residents already are digging and will expand their burrows at a rate of about 10 to 15 percent a year, Van Pelt said.
The colony is starting out on land that where Mac Donaldson’s family has grazed cattle for four generations. He said he had mixed emotions about having prairie dogs back.
“I support the attempt to keep these animals off the endangered species list,” Donaldson said. “On the other hand, I hope they don’t compete against my cattle for food.”
Donaldson said his feelings are shared by neighboring ranchers, who wonder whether prairie dogs are even native to the area. He said he’s confident Game and Fish will work with ranchers if problems arise.
“Learning from the past, the better we cooperate the more impact we can have on management,” Donaldson said.
McCarty said people historically have feared that the creatures could transmit bubonic plague, which has harmed prairie dog numbers over decades, to humans, which he said isn’t the case. Prairie dogs also have been viewed as competitors for cattle forage, but McCarty said prairie dogs actually improve cattle grazing.
“Although they benefit the environment in so many ways, people still look at them as rodents that carry the plague,” McCarty said.
While ranchers might have to get used to their new neighbors, hawks and eagles, which feed on prairie dogs, will benefit immediately from having them back, McCarty said.
When the population here is fully established, Game and Fish plans to reintroduce black-tailed prairie dogs to five other sites in southern Arizona. The effort, a collaboration with the State Land Department, is using federal and state funds and is expected to cost $276,000 over five years.
“The money being used is well worth it,” Van Pelt said, noting that the program will help keep the creature from being listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Holly Hicks, a second-year intern with Game and Fish, is camping at the site to assure area residents that the prairie dogs won’t affect their livestock or crops. She said responses so far have been promising.
The prairie dogs breed in the spring, with females producing anywhere from three to six pups, but it will take a long time for this colony to expand beyond the conservation area, she said, in part because there are no abandoned prairie dog tunnels nearby to move into.
“These animals will not affect ranchers for many years if at all,” Hicks said.
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Web Link:
_ Arizona Game and Fish Department: www.azgfd.gov
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PHOTOS:
Click thumbnails to see full-resolution images and download; caption information is in the file under File>File Info.
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-PRAIRIE DOGS: A black-tailed prairie dog stands at the entrance to an artificial burrow created to reintroduce several dozen of the creatures to southern Arizona near Sonoita. The species once was common in the grasslands of southern Arizona but was wiped out in the 1960s as a pest. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Andrew Shainker)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-PRAIRIE DOGS: A black-tailed prairie dog stands at the entrance to an artificial burrow created to reintroduce several dozen of the creatures to southern Arizona near Sonoita. The species once was common in the grasslands of southern Arizona but was wiped out in the 1960s as a pest. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Andrew Shainker)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-PRAIRIE DOGS: Kyle McCarty (left) and Holly Hicks of the Arizona Game & Fish Department tend to a cage atop an artificial burrow created for black-tailed prairie dogs that have been reintroduced to the grassland near Sonoita. Officials say the creatures, which were wiped out in the area as pests in the 1960s, are beneficial to the environment in many ways. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Andrew Shainker)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-PRAIRIE DOGS: Kyle McCarty (standing) and Holly Hicks of the Arizona Game & Fish Department tend to a cage atop an artificial burrow created for black-tailed prairie dogs that have been reintroduced to the grassland near Sonoita. Officials say the creatures, which were wiped out in the area as pests in the 1960s, are beneficial to the environment in many ways. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Andrew Shainker)