When I moved to Taos, NM, I was smitten with the colonies of mischievous, chubby prairie dogs whose antics enlivened open fields throughout the town. They seemed to be everywhere, so I was frustrated rather than outraged when I discovered that many people in my community treated them like pests.
But then, bit by bit, I learned the truth. Humans have already destroyed over 95% of the habitat that supports prairie dogs, and places like Taos are some of the few strongholds where they have survived. Simultaneously, I began to discover how remarkably intelligent, social, and vital for the ecology of the American West these creatures are. The injustice and irony of the situation drove me to draw.
My goal was to make something that recalibrated the way people saw and responded to prairie dogs. Research shows that the fears motivating people to kill prairie dogs are largely unfounded or overblown. The problem is a matter of perception. When does an animal become a pest? When humans decide that its negative attributes outweigh its positive ones. So, I set out to emphasize how smart, beneficial, and downright adorable these little fellows can be. Rather than clobbering people over the head with doom and gloom, I aimed to charm them, so that they might find their burrow-building neighbors too cute to kill.
The result was a series of illustrations, each of which playfully represents one aspect of prairie dog intelligence. To encourage people to share the art––and thus spread the message––I have primarily distributed them in the form of greeting cards. Each card features a piece of artwork on the front, with corresponding educational information on the back.
