Friday, July 2, 2010

No they are not cute!!!

They kind of look like meerkats in Africa but these are prairie dogs who live in some of our pastures. These little critters are not cute in our opinion around here. They are destructive pests who dig holes and decimate the grass around their towns.This  leaves the soil very vulnerable to erosion and weeds. They are interesting to photograph, I will say that for them. Most of the time, just one prairie dog pops out of a hole but at this time of year their pups are out and about too. They don't seem to have much common sense during this time. They are pretty curious til they get older, then they use their whistles and squeaks to warn each other of danger and zip down their holes. Hope you enjoy this rather unique catch of those little pests!

5 comments:

Sharmin said...

Can you trap or shoot them? I know at one time Oklahoma was having problems and some animal rights people got involved and they weren't allowed to kill them because they were afraid they would become endangered. They had to live trap and relocate them. Brilliance and your tax dollars at work.

Rambling said...

I hope your horses keep away from their holes. I have a couple boys with BB guns here who would love to go up and help you out with this problem ...

Linda said...

Nope, not cute....I should send you one of ours. They all have a disease here and we might see a couple of older ones but the young ones die off before they reach maturity.

Beth said...

Okay, they are pests, but they are cute. Just like raccoons, cute if they stay off your land. I hope you can learn to coexist with them.

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

What do you do with the praire dogs? We have problems with the possum and rabbits. Some people is using 1080, which is bad,

Can they be shot?

Thanks for visiting.