The High Plains Ecosystem
The High Plains ecosystem includes a diversity of plants and animals. The prairie dog is extremely important to this system. Prairie dog colonies provide a year-round variety of food for many animals, while prairie dog burrows provide several plains animals with protection from predators, a place to raise young, and an escape from the harsh summer and winter climates. The range of the prairie dog was once estimated to cover 280 million hectares of western grasslands. But since 1900, farmers, ranchers, and the U.S. government launched extensive efforts to control and exterminate prairie dogs because they considered the animals a threat to agricultural livelihoods. Today, prairie dogs are found only on about 800,000 hectares in North America. With their decline has also come the decline in populations of other animals such as the black-footed ferret, the burrowing owl, and the swift fox-all suffering from habitat loss due to urban, industrial, and agricultural development.