|Groundhog Day: Punxsutawney Phil’s Cousins May Be Forecasting a
Fate Worse Than a Long Winter| |Thursday, 31 January 2013 00:00
| Written by Marita Prandoni | Blog Entry| Prairie dogs are the
eyes of the community. Groundhog Day is most famously celebrated
in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where almost always, Phil
retreats, forecasting six more weeks of winter. But it is west
of the Mississippi where Phil’s cousins, the prairie dogs, may
well be offering a more dire prediction—about the fate of
humanity. This is why there have been efforts to establish
Prairie-Dog Day to bring attention to the plight of these
creatures, under attack by ranchers and developers who consider
them pests. In the Rocky Mountain West and out on the range, the
smaller prairie dog includes five species: the black-tailed,
white-tailed, Gunnison, Utah and Mexican. These highly social
and cute critters live in colonies or “towns” that can stretch
across hundreds of acres over grassland and sagebrush steppe
habitat. The Mexican and Utah pr