Utah prairie dog the population decline, though there are other factors, such as "land development, deteriorating rangeland health, the encroachment of woody vegetation, sylvatic plague, and drought." Conservation efforts include encouraging landowners to improve the health of their rangelands, and compensating farmers who set aside areas the prairie dogs may use. Utah prairie dog The Utah prairie dog ("Cynomys parvidens") is the smallest species of prairie dog, a member of the squirrel family of rodents native to the south central steppes of the US state of Utah. The fur is multicolor, which consists of black, brown, and dark brown at the tip. Face
Black-tailed prairie dog ("Carex duriuscula"), sixweeks grass ("Vulpia octoflora"), and scarlet globemallow. Grazing by black-tailed prairie dogs may also improve the nutritional qualities of some plants. On a shortgrass prairie near Fort Collins, Colorado, plant species diversity was greater inside black-tailed prairie dog colonies than outside of colonies, and perennial grasses such as buffalo grass and forbs increased. While black-tailed prairie dog colonies at Wind Cave National Park typically had lower levels of plant biomass and were dominated by forbs, plants growing on prairie dog colonies had higher leaf nitrogen concentrations than plants in mixed-grass prairie outside colonies. Foraging by black-tailed prairie dogs