Or whooping cranes, whose populations plunged to 15 birds by 1949 but have since increased due to federal Endangered Species Act protections.

Or black-footed ferrets, of which only 18 existed by the late 1980s before being evacuated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from the wild to prevent their extinction.

The creature currently numbering "nine" is the Utah prairie dog: There are only nine "units" left. With such a social, gregarious creature, the correct unit of measure is the number of populations, as individuals have no chance of surviving on their own.

There are only nine sizable populations of Utah prairie dogs left. Six of these populations occur partially or entirely on private land with uncertain futures. The average number of Utah prairie dogs in two of its three management areas is approaching the same low levels as shortly after it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1973. In the third management area, its supposed stronghold in the West Desert, numbers will quickly plummet if plans go through to translocate some of the largest remaining populations, such as at the Cedar Ridge golf course in Cedar City.

While FWS rallied for the condor, crane and ferret, the agency has turned its back on the Utah prairie dog. It refers to Utah prairie dogs as a nuisance, characterizes its numbers as exploding in the spring (although scientists report low reproduction rates), and allows hundreds to be moved every year.

Fewer than 10 percent of the animals survive translocation. They are simply being thrown away.

Utah prairie dogs are also still being shot, despite their federal status as threatened. FWS allows up to 6,000 of these animals to be shot every year. This would not be allowed if the species were upgraded from "threatened" to "endangered" status. FWS admits that the shooting rule is not biologically defensible, as only about 11,000 adult Utah prairie dogs exist.

The number of Utah prairie dogs today mirrors the twilight of the passenger pigeon. Once in the billions, the passenger pigeon slid from thousands to none at all. Its numbers crossed a threshold no one knew existed. Despite seemingly endless flocks in the 1800s, the last known passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

Like passenger pigeons, prairie dogs are colonial, gregarious and conspicuous animals. Also once numbering in the billions, prairie dogs continue to be thought of as limitless. They are reviled and persecuted by landowners. And they are incredibly important to the ecosystems they inhabit.

In 2003, scientists published a study in Conservation Biology describing how passenger pigeons literally shaped eastern hardwood forests. It took a century after this species disappeared from the wild to realize what we had lost.

But scientists are fully aware of the prairie dog's imperilment (they have generally been reduced by 90 percent) and ecological importance (they provide prey and create habitat for more than 140 species). Yet the very federal agency charged with recovering Utah prairie dogs calls them a nuisance animal and undercuts their legal protections.

The New York Times predicted in 2000 that the Utah prairie dog would not live out the century. But unlike the passenger pigeon, there is a law that can stand between this prairie dog and extinction: the ESA. With full federal protection, the Utah prairie dog can be brought back from the brink.

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* NICOLE ROSMARINO is the wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, N.M. E-mail: rosmarino@wildearthguardians.org