Prairie Dogs: The Great Plains Keystone Lewis and Clark Saw

Prairie dogs, from John James Audubon's The Quadrupeds of North America (1851–54). Biodiversity Heritage Library.

A keystone of the plains

In 1804, when the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the Great Plains, millions of prairie dogs lived there, in colonies from Canada to Mexico. They are a keystone species: an estimated 170 other species depend on their colonies.

• Grazers: they crop the grass around their colonies. Lewis noted that, being numerous, they kept the grass and weeds in their "district" so closely grazed it looked swept.
• Feeding bison: bison eat the fresh growth and nutritious forbs — like clovers and sunflowers — left after prairie dogs clear the taller grass.
• Food for predators: eagles, foxes and black-footed ferrets hunt them.
• Shelter: their burrows house ferrets, coyotes, foxes and burrowing owls.

For the expedition, they were both food and a hazard — their burrows could injure careless men and horses.

Decline

Today black-tailed prairie dog colonies cover just 1 percent of their historical range, and populations are a fraction of what they were, because of:

• habitat loss to farms and cities;
• disease;
• pesticides.

Tribal nations lead a comeback

Great Plains Indigenous nations are helping reverse the trend. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, restoring bison to its reservation, has focused on creating healthy prairie dog habitat, and other sovereign nations lead in prairie conservation and restoration — continuing to steward an ecosystem they have tended since time immemorial.

Sources

Based on "Prairie Dogs," part of Pivotal Places: Stories from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, National Park Service, quoting Meriwether Lewis's journal; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The Audubon illustration is in the public domain.