Black-Tailed Prairie Dog Conservation

Black-tailed prairie dogs have declined by over 98% over the past hundred years primarily because of human activities, including poisoning campaigns, shooting, habitat conversion, and the inadvertent introduction of the sylvatic plague, the wildlife version of bubonic plauge. This drastic decline of prairie dogs threatens not only the species, but an entire ecological system increasingly being referred to as the Prairie Dog Ecosystem. Functioning as ecosystem engineers that alter nutrient, soil, and water cycling, as well as plant and animal diversity, prairie dogs are keystone species whose fate will affect several other species inhabiting the Great Plains.