Prairie dogs dig their towns along this part of the road, and they provide habitat for about 200 kinds of plants and animals. The black-footed ferret, among the most endangered mammals in the world, hunts them after dark. Visitors should keep away from burrows and any sick or dead animal.
Crack a window near a prairie dog town and you'll likely hear it first. That squeak is a sentence. Theirs may be among the most complex animal languages ever decoded. They can give the size, color and speed of what's coming. A tall human in a blue shirt, approaching rapidly. There may once have been five billion of them. About five percent of their range is left. In those burrows lives the animal that eats them, the black-footed ferret. It was given up for extinct until a Wyoming ranch dog named Shep carried one home. You won't see one, because they come out at night. Plague came back in twenty twenty-four, so stay out of the towns. The risk to you is low. Their vaccine comes in peanut butter, their favorite. There's a town of Quinn in this country, named for a rancher. No relation.
Photo: National Park Service, no photographer named, public domain · Public domain