THE MATING SEASON has officially begun here at our study colony at the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico.

Every year the mating season follows close behind snowmelt. As female Gunnison's prairie dogs gradually come aboveground in the spring, attentive males will immediately begin to sniff between females' hind legs to check for estrus. They will follow the females every day, hoping to be the first to mate.

During the mating season, conflict among males can be gladiatorial. The stakes are high: with only one day of sexual receptivity the entire year, and only a few hours of that day, females in estrus are like holy grails in the meadow. Prairie dogs are polygynous (in that a single male will mate with multiple females) but are also commonly polyandrous (in that a single female will mate with multiple males). It is in the female's interest to mate with as many males as she can, but it's in the male's interest to be the exclusive inseminator. This conflict of intentions makes for high drama as the receptive female, after copulating with her first male, will attempt to slip away and find a new mate, while the first male anxiously attempts to keep constant watch over her, often driving her into her burrow to keep her in place, whilst fighting off unrelenting contenders.

Before the day ends, many prairie dog females will indeed have mated with multiple males, and so it becomes evident not only how strong the instinct for the estrous female, but how challenging the task for the possessive male. Male prairie dogs will run themselves ragged during the mating season, becoming so undernourished and taking so many blows that injuries are inevitable, and sometimes even exile or death could befall the overpowered.

RESEARCH IS OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY at the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), New Mexico! Today John and three new Prairie Dog Squad members arrived on site in the Valles Grande, a large basin grassland in high-altitude northern NM, to begin four months of behavioral research on the Gunnison’s prairie dog (GPD).

This year’s squaddies are Katie Collier, an undergraduate student on sabbatical; Marlin Dart, a recent graduate with a B.S. in Zoology; and Patrick Ryan, who graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Science and is attending graduate school at the University of Idaho in the Fall. Every year’s squad has gone through John’s thorough screening and initiation and, despite the warnings of harsh weather conditions and very long days with very few breaks and no pay, have enthusiastically accepted this year’s internship.

Last year John was continuing research he began in 2013 on a GPD colony in Redondo Meadows at the VCNP. All went well through the spring and summer, but upon returning in the Fall to re-mark the prairie dogs before they submerged for hibernation, John discovered the colony had collapsed from the plague, with 99% mortality. Not wanting to abandon his work on GPDs at the VCNP, John found a new colony in the Valles Grande, 6 miles east of Redondo Meadows as the crow flies over the tallest peak in the Jemez Mountains, Redondo Peak.

A new colony always brings with it challenges and lessons, and this year’s squaddies are in for a ride that will be educational, exciting, and at times frustrating, but in all exceptionally rewarding. As of today, only a few prairie dogs at our new colony have emerged blinking and tentative from a long winter of hibernation. Over the next few weeks, more prairie dogs will emerge as the sounds of spring and the warming soil give sign to the end of winter. The new squaddies will use the first few weeks to acquaint themselves with the research, data-taking, and the animals themselves. Before long, the slow and gradual activity of spring emergence will burst into a flurry of action as the mating season begins, and researchers and VCNP visitors alike will see the prairie dog behavioral repertoire in its full vibrancy.

7 WEEKS TO PRAIRIE DOGS! We're headed back to the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), New Mexico, in March to return to our research on the Gunnison's prairie dog (GPD). John came to the VCNP to resume studies on GPDs in 2013. With 11 years of GPD research under his belt (including 6 at the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, from '89-'95), the GPDs still manage to surprise John every season.

This year, three intrepid Prairie Dog Squad members will be joining John in his annual effort to collect data on mating behaviors, kinship, female dispersal, infanticide, alarm calling, and more. The research season begins as the prairie dogs are emerging from winter hibernation in March, and ends after all of the new offspring have emerged from their nursery burrows in June.