The short-grass prairie is located in the mid-west region of the United States. The prairie is bordered on the west by the Rocky Mountains and it blends into the mixed grass prairie to the east. It stretches from north central Montana down through the eastern side of Wyoming, into north eastern Colorado and western Kansas,down through the panhandle of Oklahoma and into eastern New Mexico and the high plains of west Texas (Cushman 1988). The shortgrass region exist due to the Rocky Mountains rain shadow effect. The prairie is characterized by flat rolling hills with low precipitation, short-grass plant species and virtually treeless (Cushman 1988).