Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

08—(AMB: prairie dogs calling”)

The black-tailed prairie dog population has declined dramatically throughout its range in Texas.

09—They originally covered a large portion of the state. And we currently have somewhere around one percent of the population that was originally here in the state.

Marsha may coordinates Texas Nature Tracker programs for Texas Parks and Wildlife. You can help wildlife biologists understand this population decline by participating in the Texas black-tailed prairie dog watch. There are three ways to get involved.

19—Volunteers can get involved just monitoring a population of prairie dogs on public property. Then we have adopt-a-prairie dog colony, where folks can go out and monitor a colony wherever they find a permanent colony they’d like to research. And then the third was is the most intense, and that’s a density study.

You’ll need a monitoring packet, and can get yours online from the TPW web site, or have one mailed to you. It’s important to preserve all native species, even this chubby ground-dwelling rodent; because if prairie dogs were gone…

09—We would lose habitat for burrowing owls and food for many hawks. We would lose, also, the prairie habitat that they maintain.

That’s our show for to day… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.