Curiosity about the “Little Dog” could not protect them

Still targeted today for extermination by ranchers, real estate developers and city councils, the prairie dog has not fared well in the settlement of the west. According to the Sierra Club, prairie dogs once numbered up to 5 billion. Today, they inhabit only 1 percent of their former range and are candidates for inclusion on the Endangered Species Act.

The little creature first entered the pages of western literature in 1804 in the journals of  William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition:

The wolf in Colorado — a sad history

The fate of the wolf in Colorado is another sorry tale of historical excess on the part of those who came west. According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the wolf once roamed widely throughout the state. Unfortunately, Americans and Europeans moving to the region during the Nineteenth Century quickly decimated the wolf’s staple diet of bison, elk, deer, and smaller mammals.