Why the Hunt of Prairie Dogs has Never Stopped

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Prairie dogs live in the grasslands of North America, where they’re a keystone species. Despite their name, they aren’t really dogs, but a kind of ground squirrel.

Over the last 200 years, hunting has decimated the prairie dog population from around 5 billion to just 2% of that number. And now they’re facing another threat: plague. Is there any way to save them from this double danger?

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???? Scientific sources:

Terrestrial vertebrate communities at black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) towns
Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Geographic-distribution-of-the-five-prairie-dog-species-Hoogland-1995-p-12-in-North_fig1_222668673 [accessed 16 Dec, 2021]

Plague - Ecology & Transmission
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Division of Vector-Borne Diseases (DVBD), August 6, 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html

Plague - Maps and Statistics, Plague in the United States
Content source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Division of Vector-Borne Diseases (DVBD), May 27, 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html

Plague: Past, Present, and Future
PLoS Medicine 5(1):e3, DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050003, SourcePubMed, February 2008
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5652515_Plague_Past_Present_and_Future

Evidence for the involvement of an alternate rodent host in the dynamics of introduced plague in prairie dogs
Journal of Animal Ecology, 4 June 2009
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2009.01541.x

Population dynamics of reintroduced Gunnison's Prairie dogs in the southern portion of their range
The Journal of Wildlife Management, 10 March 2014
https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.681


???? Footage sources:

TC 00:59
Josiah Gregg_Commerce of the Prairies_1855.jpeg
https://www.kshs.org/p/historical-encounter-and-accounts-of-the-plains-prairie-dog/13013

TC 01:02
first published photograph of prairie dog town_Allen Wallihan_1893.jpeg
http://www.lewis-clark.org/article/3129

all other photographs: Getty Images