Want To Save Grassland Birds? Start With Prairie Dogs.
Last fall, I fell in love with prairie dogs on the American Prairie in Montana even though the hype for America's Great Plains pointed me to bison. As impressive as North America's largest land mammal is, the pipsqueak of the prairie piqued my interest and stole my heart, and I'm not the only one. Andy Boyce arrived on the American Prairie in 2018 as one of the Smithsonian's first folks hired onto their Great Plains Science Program. Like me, he arrived in Montana thinking of bison.
Boyce is a research ecologist with Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. He published papers on interactions between bison and birds but soon gravitated to the black-tailed prairie dog. Boyce likes an underdog and said, "I was just incredulous at how important prairie dogs were, while simultaneously being one of the most persecuted animals on the Great Plains."
That part got to me as well. Prairie dogs are both recognized as a vital keystone species for North American grasslands by the Department of Fish and Wildlife while also considered pests by the Department of Agriculture. Prairie dogs are important for grassland birds, and saving birds is not controversial. However, when it comes to the prairie dogs, Boyce said, "basically everywhere in the country, it's open season all the time."
There are no bag limits, or closed seasons for prairie dogs in Montana. They can be (and are) killed at will. Meanwhile, more than 150 other species, including many birds and the critically endangered black-footed ferrets, rely on or benefit from prairie dogs.
As we head into spring, I'm curious about how birds benefit from prairie dog towns. One of my favorite sights on the American Prairie was a burrowing owl perched in sagebrush in a prairie dog town. It's what led me to Boyce, and it turns out that burrowing owls, which rely on abandoned prairie dog burrows for shelter, are just the tip of the iceberg. A recent review of 111 studies looked at the keystone effects of prairie dogs on grassland birds and found 105 different bird species documented using prairie dog towns in some capacity.
Long-billed curlews, which are shore birds, nest on prairie dog towns and benefit from predator alerts. Prairie dogs spend most of their time trying not to get eaten. They're always on the lookout and squeaking when they sense danger. They are called the "chicken nuggets of the prairie" for a reason.
When the long-billed curlew hears the repetitive squeak-alarm of a prairie dog, it will flatten itself over its nest to look as much like a bison poop as it can. Coyotes, badgers, foxes and raptors all prey on eggs and chicks of ground nest birds as well as prairie dogs.
Which leads me to the other ways that prairie dogs help birds: They are a major food source for hawks and eagles. Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles and Prairie Falcons may even nest closer to prairie dog towns because of it. They're not the only ones.
Songbirds also benefit. With the horned lark and chestnut-collared longspur, Boyce said, "We actually see that those nestlings grow faster and they fledge the nest at a larger size." That means fledglings leave the nest in better shape for life on their own. It's not clear whether there are more bigger bugs available to eat or if parents simply have more time to forage and feed their young thanks to prairie dogs being hypervigilant so they don't have to be.
"Those are all future questions that we're hoping to answer," Boyce said.
According to the North American Bird Conservation Initiative's 2025 State of the Birds report, "more than half of bird species that depend on grasslands for breeding habitat are in steep decline." Chestnut-collared longspur populations, for example, have declined more than 67% in the past 50 years.
Prairie dog numbers are dwindling also. Black-tailed prairie dogs are the most abundant of the five prairie dog species. However, they have lost 95% of their historic habitat. There is an urgent need for better conservation and management practices to save grassland species.
Boyce finds hope and optimism in birds' ability to migrate and adapt. "If these birds are capable of searching for good habitat across hundreds of miles during a single summer," he said, "it's kind of a 'Field of Dreams' thing. If we can create good patches of habitat for them, even where it hasn't been good in the past, they will literally fall out of the sky and start using it."
Prairie dog towns are an important part of that good habitat. Exterminating prairie dogs in the name of agriculture, sport or nuisance is shortsighted and must be challenged. Instead, protecting this keystone species should be part of conservation planning to help save birds in grasslands.
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