To Kill a Prairie Dog
Or, not. WRITTEN & ANIMATED by PETER MOORE, SPECIAL to NPR
I’m so grateful to Colorado Public Radio for giving me a platform to talk about almost anything. Even tunnel-dwelling rodents who can transmit deadly infectious diseases, and live in my neighborhood.
No signs of bubonic plague, yet, but hey—all friendships come with costs, right?
Listen to the NPR version here!
INTRO: Peter Moore made new friends near his home in Fort Collins. Then they were evicted by bulldozers. He wants to welcome them back, even if they bark at him when he walks by.
IT’S PRAIRIE-DOG HUNTING SEASON in Colorado!
From June 15th to next February, you may shoot them on public lands, as long as you pay $38.49 for a small-game license. But if you’re a landowner, and dogs are burrowing into your turf and your psyche, you may shoot them any old time, like any varmint. Or simply for fun.
All of which, to me, is like announcing the opening day of Bambi season. It may be good news for Elmer Fudd, but it isn’t for me. Or more importantly, for prairie dogs.
Right after I moved to Fort Collins, I began taking yoga classes at the Aztlan Community Center. Every Saturday morning at 8, I’d walk across an abandoned rail yard near my house. The prairie dogs were up early, standing sentry at the top for their burrows and barking for all they were worth. Maybe they misunderstood what “downward facing dog” was all about?
For several years, they barked at me, and I barked back, and all was well. Then one morning I spotted bulldozer tracks amidst the weeds, and divots in the place of dwellings. It was the prairie-dog version of Silent Spring, when a vibrant community goes deathly quiet.
Suddenly, my life was less rich.
First of all, prairie dogs are super cute. Colorado Parks and Wildlife calls them “barking squirrels,” which amps up their adorability. Plus, even more than longhorn cattle, prairie dogs define the west for me. I’d spotted dog burrows from an airplane on my first flight into DIA as a tourist. It looked like craters on the moon, but with aliens who resembled Chip and Dale. And they had fetching brown eyes, just like my wife!
I studied up on my new friends.
Did you know that they greet one another with a hug and a kiss?
That they have their own language? I learned a few words of Prairie dog. Mostly they say, “Get out of our abandoned railyard!”
Prairie dogs are an ecological lynchpin, providing food and shelter for spiders and snakes, but also for burrowing owls. Which are also cute. Black-footed ferrets eat prairie dog babies, and have been pulled back from the brink of extinction by researchers at Colorado State. And by the prairie dogs themselves, by generously donating their offspring to the food chain.
Prairie dogs live in colonies. Their underground homes are well organized, with designated spaces for nurseries, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Each burrow is home to a dad and several moms—so their offspring get plenty of attention. When they’re not being eaten by black-footed ferrets. Today, prairie dogs they occupy only about 4% of the territory they once did. Their modest burrows make human real estate look like the land rush of 1889. Which of course, it is: to the exclusion of prairie dogs.
OK, like all rodents, prairie dogs are susceptible to bubonic plague. But they’re standoffish with human beings, so you’re not likely to get close enough to catch it from them.
One recent yoga morning, I heard a bark. They’re back in the rail yard! A prairie dog parent and child cussed me out for invading their territory. I didn’t take it personally. Their ancestors got here long before I did.
My advice is: Don’t shoot. Prairie dogs are probably better neighbors than I am.
OUTRO. Peter Moore is a commentator and cartoonist who lives in Fort Collins. You can hear, and see, more of his work at https://www.kunc.org/peter-moore
“If you take away all the prairie dogs, there will be no one to cry for the rain.”
―Terry Tempest Williams
I’ve heard that book publishing is like dropping a stone down a well, and never hearing a splash.
Here, I hear the splash about three minutes after dropping the stone. And I love that!
But I also love it when you share my work…
Or when you comment on it…
Or when you repost this piece by hitting the spinning arrows below. It gives people a new opportunity to engage with prairie dogs, who usually lurk in their warrens, but sometimes jump up and bark.
Go ahead, jump! Bark!
Many thanks for joining me here on the Road Metro2Elsewhere.
In case you’re wondering, this is an A.I.-free zone, which is increasingly rare in the world of publication. But I assure you, no machine could draw this poorly, or have as much fun doing it, as I do.
I hope you’re having lots of android-free fun, as well.
I once saw a prairie dog colony at a zoo. They are indeed ultra cute and I couldn't imagine looking at one and thinking, "Oh gee, look, it's a cute prairie dog, let's shoot the little guy!" Do people actually eat them (despite the risk of bubonic plague) or do they just shoot them for so-called "sport" (though it doesn't seem sporting to go around shooting critters just for the hell of it)? The closest thing we have in NH are groundhogs, which are cute, but not anywhere near as cute as a barking prairie dog colony - and they don't hang in in colonies. Thank you for your insight on these adorable critters!
The $38.49 license is the part that gets me. The bulldozers cleared the whole colony for free. The fee only starts once you're down to killing them one at a time.