Plague Is Sweeping Prairie Dog Colonies
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Prairie dogs weren’t coming out of hibernation this spring. Cobwebs covered their burrows; flies buzzed around where they once scurried west of Flagstaff.
Flea samples taken from empty prairie dog colonies in May and June proved what health officials suspected: Plague had killed them.
A 30-by-20-mile region has already lost a large percentage--if not all--of the animals, said Paul Keim, a microbiology professor at Northern Arizona University who tests fleas for plague.
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