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Are prairie dogs endangered?
100 years ago all 5 species of prairie dog covered over 40 million hectares of the western grasslands. Today they inhabit only 600,000 hectares. This is a mere 2% of their former range. Some of the reasons for the decline in prairie dog populations include extermination campaigns, loss of habitat and disease epidemics. In 1975, the Mexican prairie dogs was listed on CITES and
upgraded to the Red List in 2000. The Utah prairie dog was designated as endangered in the
entire range in 1973 and was downgraded to threatened in 1984. There are less than 5,000 left. The black-tailed prairie dog was designated as a Candidate for listing in its' entire range in 1998, but was recently removed despite a continuing decline. Gunnison's prairie dogs were recently
petitioned to be placed on the Endangered Species List
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