Daniel Blumstein

So plague came over from Eurasia, and the reason prairie dogs have been so decimated by plague is because they didn't evolve with it.

Marmots have evolved with plague.

The Eurasian ones have at least.

So their populations go up and down, and they sort of deal with that.

There's a really interesting story about that I'll tell you in a second.

Right now we're lucky, but I studied them in Gunnison County, Colorado.

Gunnison County has Gunnison prairie dogs, and I'm really concerned.

Periodically, plague comes and knocks out all the prairie dogs.

If you're studying prairie dogs, you get plague.

You know, many people get plague to study prairie dogs, but you know that.

So you do things to sort of, you're aware of your symptoms.

Sometimes you're dousing them with insecticides, things like that.

And so do you have to make sure that the fleas are killed on them if they've got... What people do with prairie dogs in the plains where they study them, black-tailed prairie dogs in Colorado, is they douse every trap with permarithin, I think, to sort of kill the fleas.

And they still get it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, as long as you know that you're exposed to it, you're probably going to be okay.

Hi, honey, I came home with the plague.

And Colorado.

And California.