This little fellow is a prairie dog.
Prairie dogs are cute and social.
Once they were found everywhere across the Great Plains of America,
but with the pioneers conquering ever more land,
the prairie dogs days of freedom were numbered.
And once in a while, they are struck by one of the deadliest diseases
humankind has ever experienced: the Plague.
Wait, what?
Let's start from the beginning.
Contrary to what their name suggests, prairie dogs are not actually dogs,
but a type of rodent.
They're a kind of ground squirrel of which there are five different species.
All five are native to North America's grasslands,
with their habitats ranging from Wyoming in the West to Kansas in the east,
and from Saskatchewan in the north to Mexico in the south.
Even though their territory may look impressive,
their numbers have dwindled.
200 years ago, there were over 5 billion prairie dogs living on the Great Plains
in an area of nearly 3 million square kilometers.
The Lakota Native Americans lived alongside them in harmony.
But with the pioneers slowly moving west,
things changed for the worse for the prairie dogs.
Rangers and farmers considered them a pest and hunted them in their billions.
They especially hated the prairie dogs for digging burrows in the ground,
claiming that cattle and horses could trip in the holes and injure themselves.
But that's just a myth.
Scientists have spent years asking ranchers about burrow-related accidents
and haven't found a single documented example.
Still, the pioneers thinking had bitter consequences for the prairie dogs.
Today, only 2% of their original number remain.
And the rodents still can't live in peace.
Prairie dog hunts can be easily booked online all year round.
A recent study found that about 1.5 million black tailed prairie dogs
were shot in a single year in South Dakota.
And that's highly problematic: Prairie dogs aren't pests – quite the opposite.
They're a keystone species of North America's grasslands.
Prairie dogs are very social animals and usually live in family groups.
These make up gigantic colonies called prairie dog towns,
which can reach a size of 50 to up to 250 individuals.
Each group inhabits one burrow with multiple entrances and exits.
A typical prairie dog burrow takes a lot of digging
as it can be 5 to 10 meters long.
Prairie dogs are masters of recycling,
reusing old or abandoned burrows and improving them wherever possible.
The burrows don't just serve as a place to rest at night,
but they also shelter the prairie dogs from enemies.
And at a depth of two to three meters,
they help them survive sweltering summer heat
as well as bitterly cold winters.
And when courting begins, the burrows are where they get down to business.
Prairie dogs mate once a year,
usually in early winter.
The female then gets busy preparing her burro for the addition to the family,
usually about 2 to 10 tiny pups.
When spring makes its welcome appearance, so do the pups above ground.
After spending a long first winter in a snug dark burrow,
they can finally stretch their legs and enjoy the sun.
With all the youngsters emerging from underground,
it suddenly gets very busy in dog town.
The pups join together to their first real meal
of grass, seeds and even small insects after being reared on their mother's milk.
And between bites of grass, there's time to play.
As a keystone species, prairie dogs play an important role in the food chain.
Swift foxes and golden eagles, American badgers,
coyotes and rattlesnakes all consider the rodents a welcome meal.
They are, however, not an easy meal.
Prairie dogs are wary and always on the lookout,
As soon as they spot a potential threat,
their shrill alarm calls sound across the plains.
That also explains why they keep the grass around their burrows short and well-tended.
So predators have a hard time catching them unawares.
But prairie dogs are more than just food.
Their digging helps grass development and promotes the renewal of topsoil.
Their extensive excavation work leaves a lot of dust and soil on the surface,
which is just perfect for the bison.
These giants still roam the plains in their thousands
and love to roll on the ground, shaking off unwanted pests
and getting a good scratch from the Earth and stones.
Because there are pests here,
making not only the bison itchy with insects, but also the prairie dogs.
And for them, this isn't just a minor nuisance, it's deadly.
It's the Plague.
The Sylvatic plague in prairie dogs is caused the same bacterium
that causes the bubonic plague in humans: Yersinia Pestis.
It spread through flea bites.
In prairie dogs, the Sylvatic plague occurs at regular and predictable rates
in specific areas and populations.
When population numbers are skyrocketing,
for instance, when milder winters have optimized the pups survival,
the number of plague victims suddenly goes through the roof.
And it's during these outbreaks that humans are most at risk
of catching the plague from prairie dogs.
Fleas can easily transfer from prairie dogs to cats and dogs
or humans out in these areas.
While the bubonic plague decimated Europe's population at various points in history,
today it's a much rarer occurrence.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, most cases were recorded in Asia.
Since then, the majority of infections and deaths have occurred in Africa.
In the U.S., an average of 7 human plague cases per year
have been reported in recent decades.
But thanks to antibiotic treatments, the plague is no longer a death sentence,
as it was in the dark Middle Ages.
But what about the cute little prairie dogs?
Are they doomed to die left untreated while we humans stay safe
thanks to the achievements of modern medicine?
Over the past few decades,
scientists have developed methods to save the charming rodents from the Black Death.
The technique includes spraying all burrow entrances with insecticide dust,
which is intended to keep fleas at bay or kill them off
before they can smack on the prairie dogs.
While it's laborious work to apply the insecticide,
it is one way of helping the prairie dogs battle a disease
that was introduced to their ecosystem by humans.
It's one way to take action
and to try to remedy what we have done to them.
Check out more stories about wildlife conservation on our channel.
Just click on our next video.
Subscribe