CONSERVATION OF BLACK-TAILED PRAIRIE DOGS (CYNOMYS
LUDOVICIANUS)
Author(s): Sterling D. Miller and Jack F. Cully Jr.
Source: Journal of Mammalogy, 82(4):889-893. 2001.
Published By: American Society of Mammalogists
DOI: 10.1644/1545-1542(2001)082<0889:COBTPD>2.0.CO;2
URL:
http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1644/15451542%282001%29082%3C0889%3ACOBTPD%3E2.0.CO%3B2
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Journal of Mammalogy, 82(4):889–893, 2001
CONSERVATION OF BLACK-TAILED PRAIRIE DOGS
(CYNOMYS LUDOVICIANUS)
STERLING D. MILLER*
AND
JACK F. CULLY, JR.
National Wildlife Federation, Northern Rockies Project Office, 240 North Higgins, Suite #2,
Missoula, MT 59802 (SDM)
United States Geological Survey, Kansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Division of
Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66504 (JFC)
‘‘. . . discovered a Village of Small animals that burrow in the grown (those animals are
Called by the french Petite Chien) . . . we found 2 frogs in the hole and Killed a Dark
rattle Snake near with a Ground rat [prairie dog] in him . . . Those Animals are about the
Size of a Small Squ[ir]el . . . much resembling a Squirel in every respect . . . his tail like
a ground squirel which they shake and whistle when allarmd . . . it is Said that a kind of
Lizard also a Snake reside with those animals.’’ (Meriwether Lewis, Lewis and Clark
Expedition, 17 September 1804)
Key words:
conservation, Cynomys ludovicianus, Endangered Species Act, plague, prairie dogs
On his voyage of discovery up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains,
down the Columbia River, and back, Meriwether Lewis catalogued many new species. One of those was the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus), which the
Lewis and Clark Expedition found to be
abundant in many places along their route
to the Rocky Mountains.
Two hundred years later, modern travelers along this same route are almost as unlikely to encounter prairie dogs as they are
to encounter wolves (Canis lupus), bison
(Bison bison), or grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), species that currently are functionally
extinct on the Great Plains. The habitat of
the prairie dog has been fragmented and
converted to croplands and pastures (Hoogland 1995; Mac et al. 1998). Numbers of
prairie dogs have been decimated by poisoning campaigns designed to reduce suspected competition with livestock and an
exotic disease, sylvatic plague (Yersinia
pestis—Cully and Williams 2001; S. Forrest et al., in litt.; Hoogland 1995). The
huge colonies in which prairie dogs evolved
are now gone (Hoogland 1995; Miller et al.
1996). In terms of the role of the prairie dog
in maintaining the biodiversity of prairie
ecosystems, the prairie dog may be as functionally extinct as the bison (M. Gilpin,
pers. comm.).
The paucity of large prairie dog colonies
bodes ill for the conservation of associated
species such as black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes), ferruginous hawks (Buteo regalis), mountain plovers (Charadrius montanus), and burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia). Although he was not familiar with
the term keystone, the ever-observant Meriwether Lewis noted numerous creatures
that were associated intimately with prairie
dogs. More recently, the status of prairie
dogs as a keystone species of prairie ecosystems has been confirmed (Kotliar 2000;
Kotliar et al. 1999; Miller et al. 1994, 2000;
cf. Stapp 1998 for a different perspective).
Five species of prairie dogs occur in
North America (Fig. 1) and all suffer to different degrees from the same problems of
mismanagement or plague as the black-
* Correspondent: millerS@nwf.org
889
890
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY
FIG. 1.—The historical geographic ranges of
the 5 recognized species of prairie dogs (based
on Miller et al. 1996).
tailed prairie dog. The Utah prairie dog (C.
parvidens) was listed as endangered in
1973, and that classification was changed to
threatened in 1984, although the status of
the species remains precarious (United
States Fish and Wildlife Service 1991; M.
Ritchie, in litt.). The Mexican prairie dog
(C. mexicanus) inhabits northeastern Mexico and was listed as endangered in 1970
(Miller et al. 1996), before passage of the
Endangered Species Act. Gunnison’s (C.
gunnisoni) and white-tailed (C. leucurus)
prairie dogs are geographically more restricted in range than black-tailed prairie
dogs (Hoogland 1996). White-tailed prairie
dogs live in less dense colonies that may be
more resilient to plague, but Gunnison’s
prairie dogs may be even more susceptible
to plague than black-tailed prairie dogs
(Cully and Williams 2001). Numerically,
the most abundant of prairie dog species is
the black-tailed prairie dog, which inhabits
Vol. 82, No. 4
mixed-grass and short-grass prairies of
North America east of the continental divide from southern Saskatchewan, Canada,
to northern Mexico.
No good estimate of total numbers of
prairie dogs is available, although the number of black-tailed prairie dogs is in the millions. Prairie dog abundance usually is expressed in terms of surface area occupied
by their colonies. The United States Fish
and Wildlife Service estimated that about
159.4 million ha of potential habitat existed
in the United States, but only about 20%
(78.7 million ha) was occupied at any one
time (Gober 2000). Less than 0.4 million
ha of habitat are currently occupied (Gober
2000), ,1% of historically occupied habitat. This decline, and other factors, led the
National Wildlife Federation to file its 1stever petition to list a species under the Endangered Species Act. In 1998, the National
Wildlife Federation filed a petition to list
black-tailed prairie dogs as threatened (Graber et al. 1998; Van Putten and Miller
1999). The National Wildlife Federation petition claimed that listing was warranted under at least the first 4 of the 5 requirements
for listing (only 1 is required for listing under the Endangered Species Act; United
States Code Title 16 §1533): 1) present or
threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of habitat; 2) overutilization for
commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; 3) disease or predation;
4) inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; and 5) other natural or man-made
factors affecting its continued existence.
Many of the same concerns expressed in the
National Wildlife Federation petition were
expressed in a ‘‘Resolution on the decline
of prairie dogs and the grassland ecosystem
in North America’’ adopted by the American Society of Mammalogists (American
Society of Mammalogists 1998) and a resolution on ‘‘Conservation of Prairie-dog
Ecosystems’’ (Society for Conservation Biology, in litt.).
In February 2000, the United States Fish
and Wildlife Service responded to the pe-
November 2001
SPECIAL FEATURE—PRAIRIE DOGS
tition by the National Wildlife Federation
by finding that the species was warranted
for listing but currently precluded because
of higher priority threats facing other species and shortage of funds (Gober 2000).
This warranted-but-precluded finding classified prairie dogs as a candidate for listing
and mandated that the Fish and Wildlife
Service conduct an annual status review to
see if the species should be listed, removed
from the candidate list, or retained on this
list.
During the period the Fish and Wildlife
Service was considering the petition, all 11
states within the current or former range of
the black-tailed prairie dog either initiated
or accelerated their efforts to develop management plans for the species. During 1999,
9 of those states signed an agreement designed to provide guidelines for management and conservation of prairie dogs and
other species associated with prairie dog
colonies (only Colorado and North Dakota
did not sign). As part of this coordinated
effort, the states appointed an Interstate Coordinator of the Black-tailed Prairie Dog
Conservation Team, Bob Luce from Rock
Springs, Wyoming, to coordinate the states’
management planning efforts. States that
are part of the collaborative effort have
agreed that their prairie dog management
plans should be in place by October 2001.
Much of the accelerated planning effort by
the states was motivated by the states’ desire to avoid a federal listing of the species.
Unlike a ‘‘non-warranted’’ finding, the warranted-but-precluded finding retains an incentive for the states to improve the status
of prairie dog management and implement
their plans and agreements. If the Fish and
Wildlife Service decides that the species
needs to be listed after 1 of the annual reviews, the states with an acceptable prairie
dog management plan possibly could be exempted from federal management through
a ‘‘Candidate Conservation Agreement with
Assurances.’’ Those agreements would
specify conservation actions that the states
would take and would provide assurances
891
that as long as the agreement was followed
by a state, that state could continue its management even if the species was listed (P.
Gober, pers. comm.).
As part of the petition review process,
the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
initiated a population viability analysis and
contracted with M. Gilpin of the University
of California, San Diego, to conduct the viability study. A team of prairie dog experts
met to provide input into this population viability analysis. That team had several
meetings culminating in a conference that
was held in Phoenix, Arizona, in December
1999. This special feature on prairie dogs
incorporates a selection of those presentations.
The papers at the conference addressed
all of the criteria, enumerated above, for
listing under the Endangered Species Act,
but not all of those papers are presented
here. Emphasis in this special feature is on
the most important factors influencing prairie dog persistence. Cully and Williams
(2001) present information on the devastating impacts of plague on North American
prairie dogs and speculate on the configuration of prairie dog towns most likely to
persist on future landscapes. Biggins and
Kosoy (2001) contrast the relatively moderate impacts of plague on Asian rodents
and mustelids that coevolved with plague
to the more severe impacts of plague found
in ecologically similar species in North
American that have only relatively recent
exposure to plague. Habitat fragmentation
and the importance of anthropogenic activities on colony size and probability of persistence on the southeastern edge of prairie
dog range are examined by Lomolino and
Smith (2001). Roach et al. (2001) used genetic markers to describe dispersal patterns
in a complex of colonies in northern Colorado and discuss the pertinence of their
findings to colony persistence. Interspecific
comparisons based on field studies of reproductive biology of 3 species of prairie
dogs are presented by Hoogland (2001).
Hoogland’s studies demonstrate that prairie
892
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY
dogs have lower intrinsic rates of increase
and are consequently more vulnerable to
colony extinction than are most rodents. Finally, Sidle et al. (2001) present new estimates of prairie dog abundance in 4 states
that are critically important to conservation
of prairie dogs. Their paper presents a new
aerial survey technique for abundance estimation that is replicable, includes estimates of precision, and does not require
trespass permission from private landowners.
A previously published paper on the effects of recreational shooting on prairie
dogs (Vosburg and Irby 1998) also was presented at the conference. Additional important information was presented at the conference that is not included in this special
feature. These included a historical analysis
of prairie dog poisoning campaigns on federal lands (S. Forrest et al., Haylite Consulting, Bozeman, Montana), a review of
prairie dog genetics and phylogeography
(M. Antolin et al., Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado), and an analysis of techniques for creating new prairie
dog colonies by translocation (J. Truett et
al., Turner Endangered Species Fund, Glenwood, New Mexico).
We hope that this special feature will direct attention to the plight of prairie dogs
and the ecosystems in which they play a
keystone role. All of the states within the
range of the prairie dog have statutes classifying the species as a pest or varmint, and
no state has adequate regulatory mechanisms in place to assure conservation of this
species within its borders (Gober 2000;
Graber et al. 1997; Van Putten and Miller
1999). By itself, the impacts of a century
of prairie dog mismanagement may be reversible with implementation of more ecologically based management programs;
however, recovery is made more problematic because of the presence of plague.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank B. Van Pelt and the Arizona Game
and Fish Department for hosting the conference
Vol. 82, No. 4
at which these manuscripts and others were presented. We thank P. Gober of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Wildlife Federation
for facilitating travel of participants to the conference. M. Gilpin, University of California, San
Diego, conducted the population viability analysis, which was based on many of the ideas and
concepts presented at the conference. We are
grateful to all who made presentations at this
conference, including those that are not included
in this special feature. We thank M. Willig for
his interest in and efforts on behalf of this special feature.
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CULLY, J. F., JR., AND E. S. WILLIAMS. 2001. Interspecific comparisons of sylvatic plague in prairie dogs.
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Special Feature Editor was Michael R. Willig.