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Prairie Dog Colonies Find a New Home at Pueblo Chemical Depot
Several prairie dog colonies have a new home at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, CO. When the Colorado Department of Transportation announced new plans for highway expansion projects, biologists knew the prairie dogs living in those areas were at-risk. Rickey Jones, the cultural and natural resources manager at Pueblo Chemical Depot offered a place for the prairie dogs to live and a solution to one of the base's problems. After a major plague incident in 2015-2016 significantly decreased the prairie dog population on the base, Jones, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, and biology professors and students from CSU-Pueblo worked hard to re-establish the historic prairie dog population. Not only will these prairie dog colonies have a new home, they will also help increase biodiversity at Pueblo Chemical Depot, attracting burrowing owls, mountain plovers, swift fox, and ferruginous hawks to the short-grass prairie habitat and eventually allowing the reintroduction of black-footed ferrets.
Explore today’s “Field in 5” to see how these prairie dogs were relocated to their new home!
Photo: An intern holds a trap with a black-tailed prairie dog inside by Dana Shellhorn/USFWS
In areas that would be impacted by the highway expansion projects, biologists set up live traps provided by the Prairie Dog Coalition baited with seeds outside the prairie dogs' holes. Once the prairie dogs went inside the traps to eat the seeds, the door would close and they could be moved.
Photo: A black-tailed prairie dog is transferred from a trap to a transport carrier by Dana Shellhorn/USFWS
The prairie dogs were transferred from the traps to a transport carrier so they could have a more comfortable journey to their new home at Pueblo Chemical Depot.
Photo: A group of black-tailed prairie dogs huddle in a transport carrier by Dana Shellhorn/USFWS
Biologists did not want to split up prairie dog family groups, so they took special care to keep all the prairie dogs that were captured in the same cluster together, and once on the base, put them in the same hole.
Photo: A black-tailed prairie dog gets fitted with a radio transmitter collar by Dana Shellhorn/USFWS
Before the prairie dogs were released, they helped with a scientific experiment! A professor from CSU-Pueblo used the prairie dogs to test the fit of an experimental radio transmitter collar. While the biologists did not leave any of the collars on the prairie dogs, they determined that the collars could be used for future projects on the base.
Photo: A Black-tailed prairie dog being held by Dana Shellhorn/USFWS
Then it was time for the prairie dogs to settle into their new home. In preparation for the relocation, biologists had already measured out holes in abandoned prairie dog towns, put black plastic tubing in the holes, and covered them with metal conditioning cages. That encouraged the prairie dogs to stay in the holes and protected them from predators until they could expand and establish their tunnels.
