Texas Fauna Project

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

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Mark Mitchell is a wildlife biologist who has served Texas Parks and Wildlife for 20 years as the manager of the Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area. He is also a certified prescribed burn boss under the Texas Burn Board, and has conducted over 150 prescribed burns at the Mason Mountain tract. Here he describes the risks that fire suppression, and associated brush encroachment, have posed to prairie dogs and other wildlife over the past 150-200 years.