Save the Prairie Dogs, Save Humanity By Lexi Firth If I’m being perfectly honest, the prairie dogs lost their “cuteness factor” ‘roundabout the first time one tried to bite me. Don’t get me wrong, it was completely warranted---I was attempting to grab it around the back for cage transferring purposes. The problem was, I wasn’t very skilled at the art of prairie dog wrestling yet and I ended up accidentally yanking the thing out by the head. The bite was a purely defensive move, but when those long teeth sank through my protective leather gloves and pinched the fragile skin on my little finger with all the might and vulgarity of a conibear trap, I admit, I cursed the vicious little rodent’s existence. My angry reaction to the bite is pretty typical of other flustered individuals--- it’s almost comparable to that abrupt, crippling pain you feel after stubbing your toe on the inconveniently placed dresser; when something becomes a nuisance to you, logic follows that said nuisance should immediately be disposed of. After all, the dresser had no right to be sitting in your bedroom, all wooden-like and waiting to get in your way as you stumbled around in the darkness looking for your shoes. And had the wild prairie dog just let me seize its head and yank at it, or better yet, not had teeth at all, my finger would have been perfectly fine and never would I have known the damage-potential those teeth-daggers actually pack. Here’s the thing about nuisances: they have a conspicuous way of teaching you a lesson. This lesson can come in a variety of forms, like a stubbed toe or pinched finger. But chances are, if something has rendered itself as a nuisance, it’s because a fact has been overlooked on the way to reaching a goal and you need to acknowledge that fact. That little nugget of information that seemed so irrelevant before is now ruining what otherwise could have been a perfect day. These facts can be as simple as light enables you to see what’s in front of your face and prairie dogs don’t like to be flung around by their heads. Or, the fact can be less obvious but immensely important, like the overall resiliency and fight a particular living organism embodies. Humans and prairie dogs share the trait of being highly adaptable creatures. Humans are very good at finding and shaping any environment to fit the needs of their rising population. Prairie dogs are very good at living in any environment that provides open plots of dirt. These two particular talents are the reasons why humans and prairie dogs have come to know each other so well, and it’s not a peaceful co-existence. In many communities, prairie dogs are considered a public nuisance. This viewpoint is understandable. Prairie dogs damage crops, destroy foundations and pose threats to wandering livestock. They reside on the sides of highways and outside of food establishments and are known to be particularly susceptible to the plague. It’s not the least bit surprising that humans have waged a vendetta against prairie dog populations: poisoning, shooting and drowning being the preferred methods of vengeance. However, like afore stated, a nuisance, in whatever form, is the result of dismissal of fact in lieu of goal achievement. So what fact was ignored that produced this tête-à-tête between humans and prairie dogs? The prairie dog natural habitat is the grassland ecosystem. Only 1% of North America’s grasslands remain intact today, the missing 99% transformed for human development, namely agricultural practices. Grasslands are ideal for agricultural land because grassland soil is particularly nutrient dense and the land is easily cleared away for crops and livestock. Thus we have the creation of our nuisance: humans morphed grasslands to meet the goals of food production and population expansion, and in the process overlooked the native species that occupied said grasslands. (Last time I checked in with good ol’evolution, species don’t go extinct just because humans sometimes find them annoying.) This is where the nuisance-stew gets spicy. Grassland soil is fertile because of prairie dogs. Prairie dogs are considered keystone species by ecologists. An ecosystem’s keystone species is one that is essential for overall function and health of the system. One of the most important keystone species duties that prairie dogs perform is promoting biological diversity. Studies of grassland habitat indicate that higher biological diversity begets higher soil quality. Long-term agriculture and human expansion strip healthy grassland soil of its nutrients and, in effect, crop production declines. Humans need high agricultural yields to maintain their ever-growing populations. And here is where that p-dog nuisance stew boils over: if humans depend on agriculture, and agriculture depends on healthy grasslands, and healthy grasslands depend on prairie dogs, yet almost all grasslands have been converted to agriculture and that agriculture will eventually fail, why are people running around with shotguns killing the one thing that will restore the run-down land and therein keep agriculture from failing? Prairie dogs are nuisances only because humans made them to be that way. Likewise, those people that continue to ignore the obvious environmental and economic stake prairie dogs have on the future of sustainable agriculture will very likely become nuisances themselves. The lesson: think beyond your own backyard! If prairie dogs are ruining your otherwise perfect day, there are organizations that would be happy relocate the animals. Save the prairie dogs, save the grasslands. Save the grasslands, save agriculture. Save agriculture, save human societies. Since people are fundamentally a selfish species and can’t be counted on to see the unique, inherent value of anything nature creates, the conclusion of this long-winded thought has to be: save the prairie dogs, save humanity.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 00:46:04 +0000
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