Question

In the late 1800s and early 1900s farmers and ranchers slaughtered coyotes, bobcats, wolves, mountain lions, eagles, and rattlesnakes, trying to protect their cattle. One direct result may have been ________.

A) a decrease in soil quality
B) an increase in predation
C) an increase in soil quality
D) an increase in the prairie dog population
E) a decrease in the prairie dog population

Answer 1

In the late 1800s and early 1900s farmers and ranchers slaughtered coyotes, bobcats, wolves, mountain lions, eagles, and rattlesnakes, trying to protect their cattle. One direct result may have been an increase in the prairie dog population. Option D is correct.

Prairie dogs used to dig through the soil, making new burrows. They ate the grasses, and roots as good herbivorous which burrow rodents native to the grasslands of North America. Nowadays the can be found particularly in the northern states.