{"id":3704,"date":"2010-05-11T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/site-profile-chico-basin-shortgrass-prairie-pueblo-county\/"},"modified":"2021-06-09T14:48:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:48:10","slug":"site-profile-chico-basin-shortgrass-prairie-pueblo-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/2010\/05\/11\/site-profile-chico-basin-shortgrass-prairie-pueblo-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Site profile: Chico Basin Shortgrass Prairie, Pueblo County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>B2: Very High Biodiversity Significance<\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6952\" src=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_basin.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Chico Basin\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_basin.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_basin-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/div>\n<p>This site was visited in 2002 as part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnhp.colostate.edu\/download\/documents\/2003\/final_pueblo_report.pdf\">Pueblo County Inventory<\/a>. The site encompasses over 250 square miles of shortgrass prairie in northern Pueblo and southern El Paso counties. Here, extensive tracts of native blue grama grass (<i>Bouteloua gracilis<\/i>) prairie on open flats or gently rolling terrain are home to numerous large towns of the black-tailed prairie dog (<i>Cynomys ludovicianus<\/i>).<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6953\" src=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_btpd.jpg\" width=\"302\" height=\"320\" alt=\"Cynomys ludovicianus\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_btpd.jpg 302w, https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_btpd-283x300.jpg 283w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 302px) 100vw, 302px\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">A black-tailed prairie dog checks out the scene from its burrow.<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\nBurrowing Owl (<i>Athene cunicularia<\/i>) are commonly seen within these prairie dog colonies, and the site also supports many breeding locations for the Mountain Plover (<i>Charadrius montanus<\/i>). These declining shortgrass prairie birds typically use areas with low vegetation and a high percentage of bare ground such as is found around prairie dog towns. Other shortgrass prairie wildlife species documented from the site include <a href=\"http:\/\/cnhpblog.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/swift-fox-vulpes-velox.html\">swift fox <\/a>(<i>Vulpes velox<\/i>), McCown&#8217;s Longspur (<i>Calcarius mccownii<\/i>), Long-billed Curlew (<i>Numenius americanus<\/i>), and massasagua (<i>Sistrurus catenatus<\/i>).<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6954\" src=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_mopl.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"262\" alt=\"Charadrius montanus\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_mopl.jpg 320w, https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/11\/chico_mopl-300x246.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">&nbsp;Mountain Plovers in the kind of habitat that they love.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>B2: Very High Biodiversity Significance This site was visited in 2002 as part of the Pueblo County Inventory. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-county-inventory","category-potential-conservation-areas","entry","override"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}