The obvious question, of course, being “How does this help us eradicate them?” Because no matter how sophisticated prairie dog language may be, they’re still foul, destructive, plague-ridden vermin. I’m totally on board with a final solution.
Seriously. Not cute.
Cotton-tail rabbits are cute. Field mice are cute. Hell, even pack rats have a certain charm – at least until the first time they wipe out your food stores. Prairie dogs? Not so much. They turn once-useful fields into leg-breakers and spread plague. If they have any other function I haven’t heard of it. On this issue I am in total sympathy with the coyotes and hawks, whom I urge to greater effort. If I were presented with two buttons: One exterminates all tumbleweeds on the planet and the other all prairie dogs, I’d need a minute to decide. (But it would be tumbleweeds.)
The strong suspicion that I helped pay for this guy’s research is not helping my attitude.
There. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.
“If they have any other function I haven’t heard of it.”
They make excellent marksmanship sharpening tools.
The red mist club comes to mind
Okay, yeah. I’m aware of that function.
If you want to indulge in utter disgust some time… visit Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. The prairie dogs there are “protected,” and some tourists actually feed the damned things. They are so fat and lazy it is too incredible to believe unless you see it in person.
It might be fun to have a falcon or huge pet owl and turn it loose on that Devils Tower population just to watch the tourist cover the city kiddies tender eyes when your feathered friend swoops in.
My understanding is that the tumbleweeds of iconic western movies are mostly the product of manmade desertification. Dunno ’bout the p-dogs. Does this mean I can kill ’em with wanton disregard for the all-life-is-sacred stuff I was taught? I kinda hope so. The dogs, I mean, not the weeds.
Both, dude. Both.
But the weeds are a source of income. Perhaps you could get a bounty for the doggies, too. Like it used to be for wolves, only less profitable. 50 cents for each kill; of course, you run the cahnce of catching the plague but that’s what assistants are for. Heh.
Apparently the Mongolians render theirs down for lamp oil
probably very sooty, spitty and flickering lamp oil – but I guess you could use it for frying if SHTF just as miners used to eat their equally spitty and smelly tallow candles if they got trapped.
I did see one in a pet shop in Italy – that just wanted cuddles, the ex was very impressed.
Now that the coldest spring in England since 1891 is warming up a little – I’ve got baby bunnies everywhere – fortunately they don’t carry anything worse than fleas, liver fluke and the very un cute mixy. I can’t remember the name of the nasty anthrax type bug that American bunnies carry – english ones dont – yet.