I was driving home last night listening to Michael Krasny interview author Terry Tempest-Williams, and she was describing her Mormon upbringing, which taught her both that every life had a spirit and that prairie dogs were worthless vermin that should be shot. She was interested in how enormously social the colony was, and how they survived through dependence on their community. She told Krasny earnestly (which made me pay attention) that Prairie Dogs were a keystone species, and that the holes and burrows they created made habitat for some 200 other species, including burrowing owl and rattle snake.
Just like beavers, America used to have millions more prairie dogs, which supported much denser wildlife. She told a breathtaking tale of the 1950s when the government decided it was going to exterminate the burrowers on the Navajo land to protect the roots of sparse grasses so sheep could graze.
The elders objected, saying to them,
“if you kill all the prairie dogs there will be no one left to cry for the rain”.
The officials smiled at these primitive words, assured them there was no relationship between prairie dogs and rain, and went off with their shotguns and poisons to eradicate the dog population. Let’s let her tell the rest of the story:
The desert near Chilchinbito, Arizona, became a virtual wasteland. Without the ground turning process of the burrowing animals, the soil became solidly packed, unable to accept rain. Hard pan. The result: fierce runoff whenever it rained. What little vegetation remained was carried away by flash floods and a legacy of erosion.
Finding Beauty in a Broken World: Terry Tempest-Williams
Without the network of holes to break up the soil, the ground could soak up no rain, and could only flash flood, not store water. These hard working and social animals (sound familiar?) tilled the land and made it possible for a very dry terrain to retain some moisture. America seems to have a learning disability when it comes to understanding how a bunch of rodents could impact the water table.
Just sayin’.
