Prairie Dog Town

Black-tailed prairie dogs are highly social animals that live in colonies, sometimes called towns, made up of family groups spread across a network of burrows. Above ground they feed on grasses, groom one another, and keep constant watch, and sentries will rise up on their hind legs and bark sharp warning calls when a hawk, coyote, or other threat appears, sending the whole town diving for cover.

That alarm-calling is part of a surprisingly complex communication system, and it is one of the reasons prairie dogs are so entertaining to watch. Spend a little time at the pull-off and you will see the rhythm of the town, the pop-ups and lookouts, the sudden dives, and the all-clear as the little heads reappear one by one from the burrows.

Prairie dogs are considered a keystone species, meaning their presence shapes the whole ecosystem around them far out of proportion to their size. Their burrowing turns and aerates the soil, their grazing keeps the grass short and healthy, and their abandoned burrows shelter other animals. The colony itself becomes a feeding ground for hawks, eagles, coyotes, badgers, and snakes.

Because so many other species depend on them, a healthy prairie dog town is a sign of a healthy grassland. Once these towns stretched for miles across the great plains before much of the prairie was plowed and the colonies reduced. The refuge protects a piece of that older world, where the prairie dog can still do its quiet, essential work on the land.

Prairie Dog Town sits within the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, one of the wildest landscapes in the southern plains, where free-ranging bison, elk, and longhorn cattle roam a country of granite peaks, oak groves, and prairie. The prairie dog colony fits into this larger picture as one link in a rich chain of life protected across the refuge.

That makes the town a natural stop on a refuge drive. In a single loop visitors can watch bison graze, spot elk at the tree line, drive up the summit road of Mount Scott, and pause to enjoy the antics of the prairie dogs, a full cross-section of the plains ecosystem in one memorable outing.

The Wichita Mountains have long been part of the homeland of Southern Plains peoples, and Oklahoma today is home to the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Apache, the Wichita, and many other tribal nations whose histories are woven through this country. The prairie and its animals, the prairie dog among them, have been part of this landscape far longer than any refuge boundary.

For visitors based nearby, Prairie Dog Town rounds out a day in the Wichitas. It pairs easily with the bison herds, the cobblestone village of Medicine Park, the old store at Meers, and the summit of Mount Scott, a small, lively stop that reveals one of the great quiet engines of the prairie.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.