Life Sciences Commons^™

A Novel Approach For Assessing Density And Range-Wide Abundance Of Prairie Dogs, Aaron N. Facka, Paulette L. Ford, Gary W. Roemer

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

Habitat loss, introduced disease, and government-sponsored eradication programs have caused population declines in all 5 species of prairie dogs. Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) currently occupy only about 2% of an extensive geographic range (160 million hectares) and were recently considered for listing under the United States Endangered Species Act. Accurate estimates of density for populations of prairie dogs would be valuable for estimating range-wide abundance and for determining threats to species persistence, yet estimates of density using robust approaches (e.g., complete enumeration or mark–recapture) are rarely undertaken. We introduce a novel approach to estimating density of prairie …