I am currently reading Candace Savage's Prairie: A Natural History of the Heart of North America. This passage stood out from what I read over breakfast:
"In the past 150 years or so, any threat posed to prairie dogs by their own infanticidal bent has been overshadowed by a greater and more persistent threat. To many cattlemen, a prairie dog colony, with its spreading expanse of close-clipped plants, represents little more than a terrible waste of grass, a view that has traditionally been seconded by range scientists. In 1924, for example, a team of respected researchers stated categorically that the prairie dog 'does not possess a single beneficial food habit [beneficial to cattle, that is]; nor is there any argument...against its complete eradication on all grazing ranges.' With that end in mind, prairie dogs have been poisoned with bait, suffocated with gas, drowned, and shot. Thousands more have been vacuumed out of their dens so that they could be relocated or, more often, offered a 'humane' death. The result of this relentless and sometimes gleeful campaign of extermination has been a 98 percent reduction in the population of black-tailed prairie dogs since 1900 [emphasis mine]." (p. 123-4)
First of all, knocking a once-prolific prey species down to two percent of its numbers in the space of a little over a century is quite a feat of destruction. Granted, we've seen even more precipitous exterminations, as with the slaughter of almost all plains bison in the latter half of the 1800s, and the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which went from millions upon millions of birds, to gone forever in a matter of less than fifty years. But that makes the prairie dog's plight no less poignant.
It also illustrates the persistent attitude among the majority of ranchers that their priorities for the land should be the most important at all times, and that both economy and nature should be bent to their will no matter the cost. This arrogance is aimed not only at prairie dogs, but coyotes, rattlesnakes, and any other animal that might be perceived as being even the tiniest bit inconvenient. The violent supremacy of Manifest Destiny continues to shed blood across the western states, its victims including countless wild animals.
But Savage makes the case that prairie dogs are important to the health of the prairie. Their continual trimming of grass leads to soft, new growth whose nutrients led bison to linger around prairie dog towns--and which create accessible feed for cattle, too. By keeping grass from dominating an area, they also allow other native plants to have a chance to grow, which benefits still more species throughout the ecosystem. Other animals may take shelter in the mounds of dirt built up as the busy little mammals dig their subterranean homes. And while Savage doesn't mention this specifically, prairie dogs aerate and turn over soil, keeping it from being too compacted and helping the soil microbiome remain healthy. They're also an incredibly important prey species for countless predatory and scavenger species, and their decline directly led to the near-extinction of the black-footed ferret, which hangs on by a thread only because of the efforts of a network of conservationists.
Thankfully science has gained a much more well-rounded view of the roles that prairie dogs play on the shortgrass and mixed-grass prairies of North America, and the consensus is no longer "Kill 'em all." Unfortunately there are all too many benighted ranchers and other agricultural entities whose attitudes are still cemented in the science of a century ago. Savage points out that:
"...state agriculture departments in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado continue to target prairie dogs as 'pests," and one hunting-industry promotion recommends shooting prairie dogs as 'a great way to get a child to be more comfortable with their firearms.'" (p. 124)
This idea that certain animals are disposable is rooted in the idea that the rest of nature only exists for us to use and abuse as we see fit. We've already seen numerous consequences of that attitude, and the conflict over the very existence of prairie dogs accentuates just how much these older, outdated modes of thinking conflict with modern, ecology-based science.
