Book Review & Interview

The newly published “Prairie Dogs, Communication and Community in an Animal Society” written by Dr. Con Slobchikoff, an internationally renown professor at Northern Arizona University located in Flagstaff, Arizona.

"I loved reading this book. The science is there but does not detract from the beautiful story being told. Prairie dogs talk to each other! Prairie dogs fashion relationships. They build elaborate underground communities. They shape their terrain to provide for a myriad of other animals at their colony. Although this book's foundation is the science of prairie dogs, the book's passion is the love of life on planet earth. The authors manage to present prairie dogs as both vital ecosystem engineers and as popular creatures for wildlife watching. The value of prairie dogs is explained in their services to biodiversity, soil aeration, nutrient cycling, water filtration, prey base, carbon sequestration, research, education, as cultural symbols of the American West and as opportunities for future generations to witness. The loss of imperiled prairie dogs is shown as having profound consequences for the prairies and the hundreds of species that thrive there. While this book convincingly translates the value of prairie dog services into concrete dollar amounts, it also convincingly calls us to appreciate and protect the prairie dog as an irreplaceable companion here on our home planet."

You may purchase this book at amazon.com.

Interview with Dr. Con Slobchikoff on "Prairie Dogs, Communication and Community in an Animal Society", May 4, 2009

What is your book about?

"In one sense, the book is about prairie dogs – their communication, social behavior, ecology, and conservation – but in a larger sense the book is about the need to appreciate that we are losing so many species, including potentially prairie dogs, at an alarming rate. We are losing much of the prairie and all of the plants and animals that live there. The story of prairie dogs is the story of many other species as well, that are heading toward extinction unless we take some action to reverse this course."

How abundant are prairie dogs?

"We are down to about 1-2 percent of the prairie dog range that we had 100 years ago. Prairie dogs are regularly poisoned, shot, or plowed under for development. An introduced human disease, bubonic plague, kills 98-100 percent of the prairie dogs in a colony because the prairie dogs apparently have no resistance to this disease. These four factors have contributed to the great decline of prairie dog populations."

What is remarkable about prairie dogs?

"Probably the most remarkable thing about them is their communication system, which has most of the elements of language. In their alarm calls, they have different “words” for different predators, and they can describe the individual features of the predators. For example, they have a distinct “word” for a human, and they can also describe the color of clothes that the human is wearing and the general size and shape of the human. For domestic dogs, they have a distinct “word” for a dog, and can also describe the coat color and size and shape of the dog. No other animal communication system has been shown to be as complex."

Prairie dogs are social. Is there anything remarkable about their society?

"The animals live in colonies called towns. The space within a colony is subdivided into territories, occupied by groups of prairie dogs that defend their territorial boundaries against neighboring groups. Each territory contains a burrow system, where the prairie dogs sleep and hide from predators. We used to think that these territories were composed of family groups, and that all of the individuals living on the territory were related to each other. But at least for one species, the Gunnison’s prairie dog, we now know that the individuals living on the territory are not all one family and are not all closely related, but more like a group of friends who agree to cooperate with one another in defending the boundary of their territory."

How important are prairie dogs to the ecology of the plains grasslands?

"Prairie dogs are considered to be a keystone species, in that so many other species depend on the prairie dogs for either food or a safe place to live. Some 200 species of vertebrates are associated in some degree with prairie dog towns, to a greater or lesser extent. They are the principal food of the endangered black-footed ferret, and are eaten by other animals that are declining as the populations of prairie dogs decline, animals such as the ferruginous hawks and the swift foxes. Burrowing owls frequently nest inside the prairie dog burrows, and the burrows serve as refuges for a number of arthropod species. If prairie dogs are eliminated from the grassland ecosystem, this web of interdependency will most likely collapse."

People say that these are just “prairie rats,” and like rats if they are left to breed, they will soon be so numerous that they will completely take over an area. Is this true?

"While it is true that prairie dogs are rodents, there is no comparison between them and rats in terms of their breeding. Prairie dogs breed only once a year. In fact, a prairie dog female is receptive for mating for only about 5 hours in a single day in a year. If she mates, she will have on average only around 4 pups. We have found that on average, two of those pups will not survive to breed the following year, so many prairie dog colonies are not increasing their numbers."

What can be done to save prairie dogs from eventual extinction?