Ghost Towns

This week has been one of the longest I've ever had, and I honestly can't believe I still have to make it through Friday before I get a chance to sleep in and relax. My fieldwork the last four days has been anything but strenuous. Having finished raptor nest checks, I had no long hikes... In fact, I had little hiking at all. What I did have laid out was a series of surveys for burrowing owl and mountain plover at four prairie dog colonies. Perhaps you're starting to wonder why I'm worn out, but stick with me and you'll soon understand.

Prairie dogs are thought of as keystone species in grasslands, essentially meaning that even a relatively small population can have a disproportionately large impact on the surrounding ecosystem. As prairie dogs feed and burrow, they alter the landscape. The feed on grasses that they pull up (or down) by the roots, as well as certain forbs and shrubs. They're so tough on the grasses that they create an environment in which only certain species of plants can survive. Often these plants are the absolute best suited to the prairie environment: tough, water-conservative, and nutrient-rich. The surviving grasses are of such high quality that they attract other herbivores- pronghorn, deer, rabbit, mice, gophers, and birds. The herbivores, in turn, attract predators, and viola! Ecosystem extravaganza!

Since prairie dog colonies are generally species-rich, they're excellent places to look for burrowing owl (which, as the name implies, live in underground burrows), and the rare mountain plover. My job was to drive out to a prairie dog colony just after sunrise with a strong pair of binoculars and a spotting scope, sit out there, and watch. Easy, right?

Yes and no. Getting to the prairie dog colonies, of course, involved finding phone numbers and contacting land owners. It also involved an inordinate amount of driving. Two of the four colonies I had to survey are located far north in Crook county, not far south of the Wyoming/Montana state line. When the colony is located two to two and half hours from the field office and I need to get out there not long after sunrise, it makes for extremely early mornings. I've been getting up around 4:00 AM this week to be out on location between 6:30 and 7:30 AM. Suffice to say that tomorrow, when I go grousing, I'll be getting up at 6:30 AM, and I'll feel like I'm sleeping in.

It wasn't enough, however, for me to drive out to the colonies and check for birds. Outside of the long driving hours (followed by trying to sit still for a few hours while scoping out the towns), there wasn't much involved, so I decided last week that I would try to double up my duties each day and to set out our bat detectors after surveying. This decision was largely motivated by the fact that the northernmost location had four bat detector sites withing close proximity.

The thing about the detectors is that they have to be set up one day, left overnight, and retrieved the next. It was easy enough for me to set the detectors when I surveyed the nearby colony, but that took care of only two of four sites, and I had to retrieve them, too. This meant a week that looked like this:

Monday: 5:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far southern Weston county, survey Fred Draw dog town. Afterwards, drive to far northern Crook county, set up both detectors.

Tuesday: 5:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far northern Crook county. Survey Cedar Creek dog town. Move both bat detectors.

Wednesday: 4:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far northern Crook county. Retrieve bat detectors. Re-set one that didn't work the night before. Drive south to Cabin Creek dog town. Afterwards, drive further south near Carlisle to set up bat detector.

Thursday: 4:00 AM wake-up. Drive to mid-Niobrara county (near a town called "Dull"... how fitting) to County Line dog town. Afterwards, drive to Carlisle area to retrieve one detector, then to far northern Crook county to retrieve other detector.

After all the driving and surveying and driving and retrieval and driving, I've worked 11 hours days four days in a row now. I would love to take tomorrow off, but alas, I cannot. I have to go after grouse once a week, which means that if Friday rolls around and I haven't been out, I don't get to take the day off.

Was I successful this week? Sort of. Two of the four colonies I visited turned out to be prairie dog ghost towns. I haven't talked to Dwayne in more than a week, so I'm not sure how the sites I visited were selected, or how long it has been since someone has visited, if at all. They're easily visible on satellite photos, but the presence of burrows, sadly, does not guarantee the presence of prairie dogs. Both Fred Draw and the County Line dog towns were almost devoid of dogs. Each had only a handful of active coteries (a term for you to Google) surrounded by hundreds of acres of empty, unused burrows.

Prairie dogs, despite being ecological engineers, are susceptible to two things: ranchers and plague. Ranchers (and other random WY inhabitants) love to shoot and poison prairie dogs. The USFS tries desperately to stop people, through signs, patrols, and heavy fines. Shooting prairie dogs isn't allowed on BLM land, either, but I get the feeling that the BLM looks the other way for ranchers that lease BLM parcels to graze their cattle. Regardless of the culprits or the means, what's resulted is the extirpation of prairie dogs across the majority of their range, and several species are now endangered.

The other prairie dog killer is sylvatic plague. Sylvatic plague is the rodent version of bubonic plague, and the disease is transmissible to humans. Sylvatic plague can wipe out a prairie dog colony in a fairly short amount of time, and, unfortunately, studies have shown that colonies stressed by losses to ranchers and the intense grazing of cattle are more susceptible to external parasites, including plague-carrying fleas. In the end, ranching is a lose-lose situation for the dogs... If they're not exterminated by the ranchers directly, they'll often fall prey soon after to sylvatic plague.

Needless to say, a town devoid of prairie dogs means a town devoid of other animals, too, including burrowing owl and mountain plover.

I did manage to find some burrowing owl, at the Cedar Creek dog town, which also sported plenty of pronghorn, a ferruginous hawk, a golden eagle, a badger, and countless songbirds. Sadly, neither of the two active towns I visited were large enough to support the critically endangered black-footed ferret.

Yesterday I was talking on the phone to one of my friends from college. She asked what I'd been doing lately and I outlined the various things I've been engaged in at work over the past month. After listening she paused for a moment, then commented, "Your job is really weird."

I would be inclined to agree.