Squatting Owls Eavesdrop On Prairie Dogs | LiveScience

The part that caught my eye actually had little to do with the owls:

Squatting Owls Eavesdrop On Prairie Dogs

...prairie dogs have the most sophisticated language yet decoded among non-humans. Recent studies have shown that they have nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, which they can use to indicate the size, shape, color, and speed of an intruder. The social rodents even have different calls for a tall human in a blue shirt and a short human in a grey shirt.

“In the past, people shied away from the word language, because we didn’t have enough information. But it’s really clear now that’s what it is,” said Con Slobodchikoff, an animal behaviorist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, who studies prairie dog calls.

Growing up, my parents frequently opined that animals of other species were as intelligent, if in sometimes specialized ways, as humans. I bet they'll be pleased by the final paragraph:

“We have for a long time underestimated the ability of animals. We thought they were running on programs of instinct, like little robots,” said Slobodchikoff. “But in reality, they’re far more advanced and far smarter than we give them credit for, and with that acknowledgement we need to give animals more respect than we have been."

As a first step maybe we could stop trying to exterminate prairie dogs...