Salisbury Zoo, Smithsonian research the secret lives of prairie dogs
SALISBURY, Md. – Researchers have been trying to answer one question for decades: What do prairie dogs do underground? Zookeepers in Salisbury are using a unique approach to try and shed light on the critters’ subterranean lives.
The Secret Lives of Prairie Dogs
Prairie dogs are a fossorial species. In other words, they spend much of their lives underground; 70% of it, in fact. “That’s where they do their eating, their sleeping. Everything like that is below ground,” explained Salisbury Zookeeper, Travis Zimmerman.
However, researching the animals’ habits isn’t just about knowing what they are typically up to. Zookeepers say prairie dog management could be improved with the information; it could be used to reevaluate exhibit designs, diet and distribution, enrichment, and keeper-to-animal interactions.
From the Ground Up
It’s usually reserved for archaeology or geophysics; but at the Salisbury Zoo, a ground penetrating radar system (GPRS) is being deployed to find out exactly what the critters are doing in their burrows.
“Once they’re done that, it’ll go back to their computer team, and they’ll create a 3D model of the burrow,” Zimmerman said.
The prairie dogs are also being fitted with tracking collars from Welsh company, Wildbyte Technologies.
“These are kind of like top of the line state of the art for animal tracking,” Zimmerman explained. “We’ll be able to take the movement and the different things we get from the collars, and overlay it with that 3D map, so that hopefully we have a full view of what their day to day life looks like above and below ground.”
Four cameras have also been set up around the enclosure, “So that we can coordinate the tracking with the cameras and make sure that it’s reading correctly,” explained Salisbury Zookeeper, Brinkley Rayne.
Subterranean and Sometimes Mysterious
The GPRS mapping is being done in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. And, it’s a new method that scientists haven’t yet tapped.
“Nothing was attempted like this, so we started reaching out to people. We reached out to [get] GPRS, the National Zoo. We even went as far as reaching out to the local police stations to see if they had GPR systems. They got a good chuckle out of that one,” Zimmerman said.
Zookeepers have been planning and preparing to use create the burrow maps for months.
Zimmerman calls the project “highly experimental,” and is anxiously awaiting the results. The ultimate hope: that the research will reveal more about the subterranean, and sometimes mysterious, creatures.
“We’re just keeping our fingers crossed that the data does make sense, and we’re able to advance our knowledge of the prairie dogs through it,” said Zimmerman.
“Putting our little zoo on the map”
In the wild, prairie dogs dig down as deep as eight to 25 feet underground. However, the prairie dogs’ enclosure at the Salisbury Zoo is only about four and a half feet deep; making it the perfect place for this groundbreaking study.
“They have been trying to do this research out in Montana, but because the wild prairie dogs can go wherever, and dig deep down… they have not been able to use the GPRS,” Rayne explained. “It’s so exciting that we’re putting our little zoo on the map.”
The prairie dogs’ activity will be tracked at the zoo for a week or two. Then, Wildbyte will help the zookeepers crunch the data.
Once that information is in hand, Zimmerman says the Salisbury Zoo will be well on its way to advancing prairie dog research for scientists around the world.
“To be able to take all that information that we’ve gathered and finally put it to work, and see it come to fruition, is just incredible,” Zimmerman said.
