Update on Prairie Dog Reintroduction

Here's an update on the prairie dog colony from volunteer Landon Vincent :

“I just wanted to write with a bit of an update on the black-tailed prairie dogs down in Las Cienegas. Last week I camped out spending four straight days monitoring the colony. Every hour (of daylight) we would do a visibility count and compare that with previously known percentage ranges for what's been observed in healthy colonies elsewhere and our colony seemed to be doing really well. Our counts were right within the expected range, depending a bit on the weather. During windy days we saw a few less, but I guess that's understandable when they rely upon scent and sound for defense. The dogs were really active at already building their own natural burrows as well as exploring up the far hillside.”

The Tucson Citizen has an article on the prairie dog release: and AZ Game & Fish has posted an article . And check out our slideshow on the release . It takes awhile to load – wait until the control panel shows up on the right corner of the screen.

AZ Game & Fish needs volunteers over the next three months to monitor the prairie dog colony. If you can help please contact us.

Thanks to Landon for the update and to all of the volunteers for their efforts to return this keystone species to its home in Arizona!

Karen Michael