City prairie dogs making themselves at home in the Wichita Mountains

They’re home.

Sixty former Lawton residents have moved into their new digs at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, after a five-day prairie dog relocation project by refuge biologists.

City of Lawton and refuge officials said earlier this summer the goal was to repopulate the refuge’s prairie dog towns, using members of the prairie dog “city” in Elmer Thomas Park. That population is so large its members have migrated to adjacent areas, causing major problems in the park. City officials have said they will conduct another poisoning program to thin the population to a manageable level, but also gave the refuge permission to capture and relocate some.

Biologists identified a healthy offshoot of the original Elmer Thomas Park town — an area on the east of Northwest 2nd Street, at Northwest Ferris Avenue — for their capture and relocation efforts.

Christine E. Fallon, biologist at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, said the refuge crew relocated about 60 prairie dogs in a program conducted from Oct. 16-20. The prairie dogs now live at the refuge’s Turkey Creek site, what visitors know as Prairie Dog Town along Oklahoma 49 on the refuge’s west side. But rather than place them in the traditional viewing area on the south side of the road, the prairie dogs are on the north side, behind the fence that marks one of the refuge’s special use areas. Until the prairie dog town died out, its residents lived on both sides of the road.

“We made this decision since the existing burrows were much more numerous and in better condition compared to those in the viewing area,” Fallon said of the decision to move sites. “We suspect that the prairie dogs will naturally return to the viewing area as the population size increases over time.”

Fallon said the refuge’s newest residents are settling into their new home.

“So far, so good. They seem to be comfortable and are becoming established,” she said, adding the prairie dogs are making themselves at home in existing burrows, touching them up since they haven’t been used for more than a year.

It’s a good start to a program the refuge coordinated after talking to researchers at Oklahoma State University, and analyzing Lawton’s population to see which would be best suited to life in the wild.

Biologist Dan McDonald explained the capture technique in August, saying traps would be placed at the selected site several days before the capture so prairie dogs would learn to ignore them. Biologists also laid out feed every day. Before the trapping event, that feed would be moved inside the cages, tempting the prairie dogs inside to get it and triggering the traps.

Fallon admitted the trapping process was a struggle.

“The urban setting posed a lot more challenges,” she said, explaining that in a normal scenario, prairie dogs can go about their day and forage without interacting and being scared by humans.

Fallon said there also were people freeing prairie dogs from the traps, frustrating biologists. She said many people were simply concerned about what would happen to the prairie dogs because they knew about the City of Lawton’s poisoning plans.

“Once they had a conversation with us, everyone was really supportive,” she said.

Biologists also addressed concerns about how “city dogs” will do in a wild setting. McDonald said this colony was specifically chosen because its members had less interaction with humans and exhibited behavior similar to those found in the wild. Fallon agreed.

“The Lawton prairie dogs were quick to return to their burrows and sound their alarm calls when a perceived threat was present (humans, dogs, coyotes, red-tailed hawks),” she said, adding biologists also have put protective fencing around their new burrows. “The temporary fencing provides a better barrier to predators while the prairie dogs are still putting finishing touches on their new burrows.”