IT'S ULTRASOUND SEASON AGAIN! John and the crew are working hard to capture as many pregnant females as possible and conduct ultrasounds before they give birth (ULTRASOUNDS). The purpose of the ultrasounds is to obtain a count of fetusus in utero in order to compare this number to the count of juveniles emerging from their nursery burrows in June. If a mother had four babies at her ultrasound, for example, but only three emerge from the nursery, then we know somewhere one of her babies failed to flourish. These numbers can be taken into consideration with other behavioral and environmental factors in determining how well a particular female prairie dog does in breeding and raising young, whether in a single year or over her lifetime.