Here’s a short multiple-choice quiz to test your knowledge of your fellow animals. Note: Though some animals may share several of the characteristics described, they must meet all the criteria in order to qualify as a correct answer.

1.) Which two animal species fit the following description:
highly social; master planners/architects/builders of complex, interconnected dwellings; live in established colonies; have a language; can readily learn and invent new words; greet one another by kissing?

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Dolphins
D. Penguins

Answer: A and B.

2.) Which two animal species fit the following description:
vegetarians; practice communal care for the offspring of their group; essential to the health of their chosen environment, without whom the entire system unravels; a benefit to those other species who share their turf; have been forcibly reduced to less than 3% of their original population?

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Bison
D. Hyenas

Answer: B. and C.

3.) Which two animal species fit the following description:
out of control pest overrunning the planet, multiplying at a phenomenal pace--so fast they’re pushing every other being off the face of the Earth; completely nonessential in the scheme of things and rapidly destroying the habitats for all other life; categorized by a swellheaded sense of superiority, convinced that they are of far greater significance than any other animal--especially mere rodents; make sport of killing other gregarious beings which they refer to as “varmints“?

A. Humans
B. Prairie Dogs
C. Cockroaches
D. Starlings

Answer: Trick question--the only species fitting all the criteria is A.

If this seems a harsh assessment of the human race, remember, we’re talking about the species who single-handedly, and with malice of forethought, blasted, burned and poisoned the passenger pigeon--once the most numerous bird on the entire planet--to extinction, and who nearly wiped out the blue whale--the largest animal the world has ever known. Under the mistaken impression that prairie dogs damage grasslands usurped by cattle ranchers, the U.S. government began a poisoning campaign in the 1920s that led to the near-demise of prairie dog colonies throughout their ecosystem. The few remaining scattered colonies now occupy only 1% of their original range, yet prairie dogs are still senselessly shot on public lands to this day.

When the dust settles on their reign of terror, the human species as a whole will be best remembered as squandering ingrates who turned their noses up at nature’s gifts and goose-stepped on toward mass extinction, in spite of warnings from historians and scientists and pleas from the caring few.

Professor Paul R. Ehrlich is one scientist who has spent decades trying to get the word out. In 1970, he told National Wildlife Magazine, “It isn’t a question of people or animals--it’s got to be both of us or we’re finished.
We can’t get along without them. They could get along without us.”

All across the globe, humans have enslaved those animals they deemed worthwhile and set out to eliminate the rest. As John Muir noted, “The world, we are told, is made especially for man--a presumption not supported by the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything…which they cannot eat or render in some way useful to themselves.” To the vast majority of people living in their realm, prairie dogs fall into the category of ‘not useful’ and so have suffered the wrath of the gods.

Yet, as Dr. Jane Goodall observes, “Nine different wildlife species depend on the prairie dog and their habitat for their survival. The prairie dog is a critical component to healthy North American grasslands.” And Terry Tempest Williams adds, “If the prairie dog goes, so goes an entire ecosystem. Prairie dogs create diversity. Destroy them and you destroy a varied world.”

The black-footed ferret is one species who cannot survive without a stable population of prairie dogs. Once thought extinct, ferrets are among the most endangered animals on the continent, numbering only around 300. Ferrets, coyotes, badgers, swift foxes and others use abandoned prairie dog holes for denning. In a region so arid that trees can’t grow, burrowing owls and mountain plovers have adapted to nesting in old prairie dog tunnels. Despite their name, burrowing owls aren’t really heavy excavators, depending on prairie dogs to do the grunt work for them.

Like renters scrambling for a recently vacated Manhattan apartment, anyone lucky enough to secure a former prairie dog home finds themselves living in the lap of relative luxury. Accommodations include multiple rooms on different levels, branching off from a passageway dug sometimes 15 feet deep and traveling horizontally for up to 100 feet or more.

By moving massive amounts of dirt in the construction of their elaborate abodes (which include a level just inside where they listen for danger, year-round sleeping quarters, birthing chambers and a designated restroom) prairie dogs spread nutrient-rich soil and compost onto the surface, acting as nature’s organic gardeners. Deep layers of aerated, fertile soil are tilled up and the resulting nitrogen-rich grasses and forbs associated with prairie dog towns are preferred by grazers, such as bison, pronghorn and even cows.

Prairie dog colonies were once a central feature throughout their range--the short-grass region of the Great Plains--which ran from the east slopes of the Rockies through Southern Alberta, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and south to Texas and Northern Mexico. Their burrows not only housed extended families, or coteries, but in larger colonies, included an elaborate and lengthy tunnel system connecting one home to the next. One such aggregation in Texas stretched for 100 miles, covered over 25,000 square miles and housed 400 million prairie dogs. Words like ‘subdivision’ have been used to describe prairie dog colonies, but while urban sprawl--notorious for miles of blacktop and coal-fired power plants--X’s out wildlife habitat, prairie dog dwellings are a positive boon to the environment.

So cooperative are prairie dog settlements that mothers even practice communal nursing, but not because they can’t keep track of their own offspring. Unlike many rodents, prairie dogs have a low birth rate--a would-be mother only coming into estrous one day per year. And litter size is relatively small, usually three to four young who remain in the household until maturity, at which time only the males disperse.

As should be expected, any animal this social will need to develop their own form of communication, and prairie dogs have become quite the conversationalists. Who would have thought the prairie dog “barking” to others from the edge of his burrow was actually a skilled orator reciting an animal version of the Gettysburg Address? Northern Arizona biology professor and prairie dog linguist, Con Slobodchikoff, has identified a boundless array of words with specific meanings, as well as signs of sentence structure and the ability to invent new words describing things they’ve never seen before, within the varied sounds of prairie dogs.

According to Slobodchikoff, "We're chipping away…at the idea that animals don't have language," adding, "So far, I think we are showing the most sophisticated communication system that anyone has shown in animals." A few years back, wildlife researchers in Africa caused a stir in the scientific community with their earth-shattering discovery that vervet monkeys had their own language. They have three categories of warning calls: one each for leopard, eagle and snake. Well, our home team has that beat.

Slobodchikoff, with the aid of a computer that creates a sonogram, has analyzed recordings of prairie dogs and identified words for potential predators such as coyote and red-tailed hawk, as well as for fellow grass-eaters like pronghorn, deer and elk. They also have words differentiating between curious human onlooker and aggressive human with ill-intent.

Unfortunately, the latter is the rule. People in “cattle country” entertain themselves by using the few remaining prairie dogs for target practice.
Taking sick pleasure in shooting a watchful, cooperative grass-eater as she pops up from her burrow to see if it’s safe for her youngsters to come out, these vacuous, hollow excuses for human beings are completely unconcerned about leaving dependent babies to starve. The noble hunters have even devised a clever name, “double tap” for a shot that kills both a mother and her adoring baby. “Tap” is a particularly twisted label, considering the hollow point bullets they use cause the victims to literally explode on impact, a sight that must really get the shooter’s blood up.

Ladies beware: there’s a well-established link between cruelty to animals, domestic abuse and other crimes along the violence continuum. One such thrill-killer describes his sport this way: “Prairie dog hunting is a blast…on both private and public lands. I like to start by clearing everything within 0-50 yards with an AR-15, then switch to my .223 Remington for anything out to about 150 and finally trade up to the bull barrel .22-250 for the longer shots.” The only thing stopping people with this much bloodlust is the melting point of their gun barrels and the cost of ammunition (going through 500 rounds a day can get expensive). Yet, they will pay upwards of $1,200 for a couple of days at one of the private ranches that advertise prairie dog hunts. One enticing ad describes their typical day as follows: “We approach the edge of a prairie dog town and set up and shoot for an hour or two or until the prairie dogs start getting scarce, then we pull up and drive over the hill and continue prairie dog hunting…after you get tired of the carnage, its also fun to try shots over 1,000 yards.”

Longtime candidates for ESA protection, black-tailed prairie dogs were removed from the waiting list in 2004, their fate left up to the states which manage them for “recreational shooting opportunities.” This glib game department jargon, loosely translated, means states like Wyoming have an open season on prairie dogs, allowing for unregulated, year-round shooting without limit or regard for their future.

Adding insult to injury, the latest threat to prairie dogs comes from the pet trade. To satisfy captive animal collectors’ appetites for the latest fad, prairie dogs are vacuumed out of their burrows, separated from their relatives and shipped to markets as far off as Japan.

If we ever completely decode prairie dog language, we’re likely to find that the word for human is, at best, unflattering. Edward Abbey wrote, “We are obliged…to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.” No doubt many prairie dogs, embittered by the cruel treatment their families have endured, would find it painful indeed to claim any connection to the human race.

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Published in the July/August 2007 issue of the Animals Voice magazine