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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Prairie Dogs Given Refuge

By Toby Smith
Journal Staff Writer
       SAN ANTONIO, N.M. — You have to wonder what Conrad Hilton would say.
    The hotel magnate, who was born in this hamlet in 1887, a far piece from the world of his headline-grabbing great-granddaughter, Paris Hilton, set up his first inn here, inside his father's grocery.
    The family place is long gone, but a new lodging, two of them, opened this month. Ol' Connie would like their occupancy rates, which are close to 75 percent. What he might not understand is that all the guests are about 13 inches tall and all sleep underground.
    Welcome to Prairie Dog Villas on the Rio Grande.
    Such a name does not exist at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, but it could for the little critters that are the newest arrivals at the famed conservation spot southeast of Socorro.
    Their presence surprises because prairie dogs, say critics, mostly agriculture folk, are varmints who tear up the land, consume vegetation and ruin crops. And what are they doing, critics might wonder, in a distinguished preserve that has primarily been the domain of migratory birds?
    First, these aren't just any prairie dogs. They're black-tailed rodents, which are scarce.
    Moreover, the Bosque's manager, Tom Melanson, says they play a vital role in the native ecosystem.
    He hopes they'll summon burrowing owls, birds not seen here since prairie dogs vanished two decades back.
    Black-tails have been decreasing — in southern New Mexico and southeast Arizona. In fact, black-tails, one of five prairie dog species, are now gone from Arizona.
    Once considered for the federal endangered list, black-tails are now labeled by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as "animals of concern."
    Numbers in decline
    All prairie dogs in this country, said Bosque del Apache biologist Colin Lee, have been in drastic decline for a long time. Indeed, the number of prairie dogs in the United States is about 2 percent of what it was 200 years ago.
    What happened?
    Predators such as badgers, coyotes and birds of prey take their share.
    So does man.
    He's been known to poison, shoot, dynamite and burn prairie dogs alive. He also snatches prairie dog pups for the exotic pet market; poachers suck the babies right out of the earth using giant vacuums.
    "The perception is that prairie dogs are bad," Lee said. "But they actually add to the nutritional value of vegetation, making it better for horses and other animals to graze. The thinking in recent years is to re-establish them."
    The official term is "translocation." About five years ago, black-tailed prairie dogs from southern New Mexico's Otero Mesa, where they thrive on BLM land, were trapped and transported to Ted Turner's Ladder Ranch near Truth or Consequences. There they were placed in artificial burrows.
    Turner's philosophy is one shared by many wildlife watchers: Prairie dogs help the land.
    Scout pitches in
    At about the same time Tom Melanson began talking of translocation for some black-tails to the refuge, Stephen Reimus, a 17-year-old Boy Scout from Los Alamos, began searching for an Eagle Scout project.
    Reimus (pronounced "Ry-mus") and his Scoutmaster, Jim Cobble of Troop 129 in White Rock, visited Bosque del Apache and talked to Daniel Perry, the outreach administrator.
    Perry mentioned certain options to the Boy Scout. When Reimus heard "prairie dog relocation," he grew intrigued.
    "I was always thinking that they were everywhere," Reimus said in a telephone interview with the Journal. "I thought that nobody had to worry about them."
    In March, Reimus went back to Bosque del Apache with his father, Paul Reimus, and the two conferred with Colin Lee.
    The Reimuses were given a design for building prairie dog towns and a list of materials needed. At a Home Depot in Santa Fe, the Reimuses bought 20 five-gallon buckets, large rolls of metal mesh and 300 feet of corrugated, flexible drain pipe. The bill came to about $500.
    Paul Reimus paid, though private donations and a promise from the Kiwanis Club of Los Alamos should help the Reimuses to break even.
    Leading with carrots
    Over the Memorial Day weekend, the Reimuses and a handful of Boy Scouts went to work.
    One of the two prairie dog sites here is about a half-mile south of the Visitor Center, in plain view of State Highway 1, the refuge's main access road. The other site, located near a gravel pit, is off-limits and won't be open to the public for the time being.
    The site near the Visitor Center was chosen for its loose soil, a mix of sand and clay. The terrain is flat, surrounded by grassland, but none more than 4 inches high. All are amenities that prairie dogs prefer when they're looking for a place to stay.
    Ten burrows, each 10 feet long and 4 feet deep, were dug. Into each burrow went a bucket. The buckets were turned upside down to provide a sturdy "nest chamber." The Scouts then ran a length of flexible pipe into an opening in each bucket. The other end of the pipe was set to poke out of the ground.
    In early July, Lee and a refuge volunteer trapped 54 black-tails at the Ladder Ranch and then trucked them to the refuge in "acclimation cages," lured there by special bait.
    Stephen Reimus returned to the refuge to help distribute the rodents.
    The cages were set atop the burrows, letting the little guests get used to the new environment. At the bottom of each cage was a trap door that led to one of the pipes and eventually to the nest chamber.
    Lee set down carrot and apple slices in the pipes. After a while, the acclimating cages were removed.
    Some of the prairie dogs fled, and perhaps a few were victims of predators.
    Happy dogs
    Stephen Reimus will soon begin his senior year at Los Alamos High School, where he enjoys math and plays the trumpet in the band. He hasn't received his Eagle Scout badge, but he expects to this fall.
    "The project was really fun," Reimus said. "I can go back anytime in my life and see prairie dogs there and think, ‘Well, I helped start that and it's cool.' "
    There's a pull-out for automobile viewing at the visitor center site, and an interpretive sign will go up soon.
    "I think prairie dogs will provide a good education here," Lee said. "They're year-round residents; they don't hibernate or migrate. We're excited about having them. And they'll be protected, because they're on federal land."
    A handful of prairie dogs have started natural burrows at the sites, which gladdens Lee.
    "It shows they're happy," he said.
    And Conrad Hilton?
    He often said that if his guests were happy, so was he.