Giant fat no-tailed squirrel!!!!

18 years ago

Ok...not really. Its a prairie dog. Last week I did some work at an AFB in BFE and had an opportunity to drive through the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife refuge. The Wichitas are the oldest mountains in the country.

I stopped at a prairie dog town and one of the varmints came right up to my shoe! It was fun watching them but eventually i got freaked out at the possibility of catching hanta virus...so I left.

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-MB-

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Comments (10)

clintdawley
18 years ago
I hate the tree rats..but love me some prairie dog! There is a huge colony by my childhood home near the Red River. In high school I used to watch them for hours. This little guy near your shoe looks fearless!
shannon_widmer
18 years ago
Breezy, great pics! That little guy is a cutie.

Clint, where's your childhood home? I only ask because the Red River is only a couple miles from my house here in North Dakota. We have prairie dogs down by the river and they are really fun to watch.
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clintdawley
18 years ago
Shannon..Callisburg, Texas..population 424 (near Gainesville).
shannon_widmer
18 years ago
Oh, wow, Clint! I thought my hometown was small (Cambridge Springs, PA population 2500) but you have me beat!

These prairie dogs must be tough little buggers to survive in such different climates. Big difference between North Dakota and Texas!
mrbreeze
Original Author
18 years ago
I think there's really not that much of a difference in N. Dak. and Texas. At least west Texas. (not counting winters) At least for the things important to prairie dogs. It occured to me that the lil' bugger was REALLY fat for a rodent in "winter". I wonder if they get fed by passing vagrants or something...

Anyway it was hella cute and there were bajillions of them.
clintdawley
18 years ago
They are hella cute ;). North Texas is more like East Texas with a little less rain and little cooler winter temps.

These little fellas are survivors, that's for sure.
alexis
18 years ago
There was an article in my local newspaper (Gainesville Sun) a few years ago about a young girl who got a prairie dog to keep as a pet just for helping out some group with taking care of the prairie dogs they had at the animal preserve. The article said that they are friendly to people and do make good pets. So maybe that's why it was so friendly to you. Maybe it was its natural personality to be so friendly to people.
Driftless Roots
18 years ago
But how are they with taters, Precious?

(Dag, that's cute!)
clintdawley
18 years ago
Shady/Smegol: Not as good as coney and taters!
clairewags
18 years ago
I guess I'm the only one who would feel the urge to shoot these little b@stards if they came near me. I am not a rodent fan. Small dogs/ lap dogs also qualify as rodents.

Having prairie dogs as pets was a 'thing' here in Wisconsin for a while- until the pet stores got a bad batch. They had some sort of disease that transferred to people. Icky.