One of Utah's threatened prairie dogs pokes through the snow. Decades of determined eradication by federal, state, and local governments, wipeouts from flea-borne plague, recreational shooting, and habitat destruction have left prairie dogs a pale presence. Biologists estimate that five billion prairie dogs populated the western plains at the turn of the century.
(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Vanishing Prairie Dog," April 1998, National Geographic magazine)
