Posted on 05/19/2008 4:50:54 AM PDT by SLB
GREEN RIVER -- The prairie dog rises above its burrow on the high plains of southern Wyoming and takes a casual look around.
Seconds later, the animal disappears in an explosion of blood and dirt. The self-described "shortgrass sniper" dressed in camouflage and orange chuckles for the camera and gets ready to fire again.
With thousands of hits on YouTube, this popular prairie dog video by Colorado hunter Jim Bowman advises hunters to get ready for the upcoming prairie dog killing contest in southern Wyoming's Carbon County.
The controversial, fifth annual, three-day "There Goes the Neighborhood" prairie dog killing contest is scheduled to begin May 31 on private lands around Medicine Bow, organizer Bowman said.
Bowman, a machinist who lives in Kersey, Colo., said the event drew 38 participants last year, mostly from Colorado and Wyoming. He said this year's event will include the first-ever "world championship, long-range prairie dog sniper event" scheduled for June 1.
"I think we're going to have a really good hunt this year," Bowman said in a phone interview. "And if we get some controversy out there, we're ready to handle that, too. We'll see what happens."
Bowman said he formed an organization after last year's hunt, Prairie Dog Posse, to promote the event and to provide a "voice" for prairie dog shooters.
The group's Web site boasts that members are "a fun crowd who likes to dust prairie dogs from to dawn to dusk."
Duane Short, wild species program director for the Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, criticized the event and said it's unfortunate that Wyoming continues to allow "disgraceful" prairie dog shooting contests.
"It's hard to find any socially or environmentally redeeming qualities to this kind of shoot ... The barbarism of this event is enough to turn one's stomach," Short said.
Bowman said participants pay a $20 per person and four canned goods for the group's "Hunters for the Hungry Program." Members of the armed services get half off, he said. Prizes are awarded based on the number of prairie dogs killed.
Bowman said the canned goods are donated to local food banks and to needy families.
Blood sport
Like most Western states, Wyoming allows year-round hunting of the prairie dog and classifies the rodent as a nongame animal. The Wyoming Department of Agriculture has classified the animal as a pest worthy of extermination any time, any place and by any means.
Part of the appeal to prairie dog shooters is that no license is needed to hunt in Wyoming. Nor is there a bag limit on the animal. Moreover, the Wyoming Board of Outfitters and Professional Guides does not require a license to guide prairie dog hunters.
Federal biologists say prairie dog populations declined rapidly last century, due in large part to sylvatic plague, regulated and unregulated poisoning by government agencies and private landowners, loss of habitat and unregulated shooting.
While many ranchers and others in Wyoming kill prairie dogs on private and public lands, western wildlife agencies including the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have been working to conserve the animal through interstate agreements and state management plans.
Several times over the last decade conservation groups have petitioned to have the prairie dog listed under the Endangered Species Act, though federal officials have determined the prairie dog's current status does not warrant a listing. Further review of the animals' status is under way.
Bowman contends that the annual prairie dog shoot helps ranchers eliminate -- without the use of poisons and other chemicals that are harmful to the environment and other wildlife -- unwanted prairie dogs.
"I think what we're doing is certainly not hurting the environment ... I think there are still plenty of prairie dogs (in Wyoming) to go around," he said.
"If we thought they were really an endangered species, we certainly wouldn't have the shoot ... We're not like that," Bowman said. "We're doing everything legal and above board ... One thing about us is that we're not running from anybody."
Ban the event?
Animal rights activists such as the Prairie Dog Coalition and conservation groups including Biodiversity believe shooting prairie dogs in contests is an abhorrent, cruel and unnecessary blood sport that should be stopped in Wyoming.
The groups have asked the Game and Fish Department to ban prairie dog killing contests such as Bowman's.
"It makes absolutely no sense to allow these prairie dog kill-fests to continue ... (The department) should immediately act" to ban the events, Short said.
Lindsey Sterling Crank, executive director of the Prairie Dog Coalition, said it was important to "stop sending the message to our children that it's OK to shoot and kill their heritage. The fact is these practices are cruel and inhumane."
Recent studies have shown prairie dog shooting contests have a "residual, negative physical and ecological effect" on prairie dog colonies, and feeding and reproductive behavior, Short said in a phone interview.
"The bullets used are also typically non-jacketed, hollow-point, exploding bullets designed to 'mist' the prairie dog, which is a pretty despicable practice," he said.
"Those exploding lead bullets turn into sand-sized grains ... that are picked up by any species that scavenge on corpses," Short said.
He said carcasses containing those lead fragments can poison hawks, foxes, black-footed ferrets and burrowing owls, among other animals that feed on prairie dogs.
Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.
Some here do not understand the animal rights groups. They don’t care if the rodent you are killing (in this case prarie dogs) carry plagues that can be harmfull to human beings. A lot of these people in the animal rights groups would rather see more animals and less humans. If it takes a plague to kill off a million people, then so be it...
The real sickos here are the animal rights groups.
Hey Hey Heyyyyyyyyyyy it’s their lie let em tell it like they want ..........:o)
Agree 100% !
The idiots that go after our guns and sports etc out themselves again and again as subject matter losers !
Stay safe !
Bingo.
I agree.
Go ahead and kill it but eat what you kill.
A VERY FINE LINE.... I am very careful to only "control" the ground squirrel population. I have to walk a very fine line. If I shoot too many, they might not survive and the field will be barren. If I leave too many in the field, the rancher might use poison and kill them all. A surviving population of ground squirrels is a good thing and besides, I don't want to work myself out of a job.![]() |
Contenderous bullberrini
PLAGUE IS ENDEMIC.... The Black Plague is caused by a bacteria named Yersinia pestis carried by fleas. For eons it lived in the blood of resistant wild rodents in northern Asia. During the Middle Ages, it somehow began to infect the domestic rats that infested towns and cities. After the rats died, their fleas fed upon the villagers themselves. Unable to imagine what was happening to them, more than half of Europe's entire population died as black death swept the continent.
In 1900, infected rats reached California on a ship from Asia. Soon plague spread from the port of San Francisco to other nearby cities, and to deer mice Peromyscus, and other resistant rodents. While towns in Marin and Sonoma counties largely escaped the outbreaks that affected most temperate regions of California, Y. pestis became firmly entrenched in the Coastal and Sierra Nevada Ranges. Tularemia is also carried by rodents in California.
Today, plague is endemic in resistant wild rodent populations throughout the western United States. Predators or scavengers can get the disease when they eat their prey, and hunters when they handle or skin infected game animals. From time to time the bacteria spreads to more susceptible rodents, like ground squirrels Spermophilus beecheyi. Epizootic outbreaks decimate the squirrel colonies, leaving hoards of infected, hungry fleas around the now empty burrows. Sites like these are especially dangerous to hunters, campers and nearby residents.
38 Cases Reported Since 1970
POSTED: July 3, 2002
LOS ANGELES -- State health officials issued a warning Wednesday to people planning to be outdoors this holiday weekend to guard against bubonic plague, which is carried by rodents in foothills, mountains and along coastal areas. Since 1970, 38 cases of the plague in humans have been reported statewide. The most recent report was in 2000 when a Kern County man survived the sometimes deadly disease by taking antibiotics, said Ken August of the California Department of Health Services. Symptoms include fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen glands.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
I believe it was Lt. Col. Dave Grossman who said that the sheep don't like the sheepdog, because he reminds them of the wolf.
I kill rats and mice because they are causing a problem, not because I get some visceral thrill out of watching them die.
I used to ambush Groundhogs that were eating our watermelons, but I didn’t get off on the act of killing them. It was a simple necesscity, not entertainment.
My cat likes to kill small mammals too.
She brought a live rabbit in the house over the weekend and really freaked out my wife.
Bon appetite.
Actually, I've eaten four out of five of those, and they're not that bad. Never thought about eating a tick, but fry it up. I'll give it a try.
And in addition, we are talking about something big enough to make a shepherds pie out of.
But you knew that.
Oh, my goodness.
Save the Prarie Dog!! I can just hear it. Oh, well, we all got tired of them worshiping fish.
I admit I only got halfway through the article. The whiner made it sound like he was going to be forced to attend one of these shoots. Next he’ll be wanting to outlaw rat poison. Shooting is about as merciful a death as is possible. Beats death by poison.
“I love to hunt, but to me the very definition of hunt would have to include, at the least, using the meat for food.
Bingo.
I agree.
Go ahead and kill it but eat what you kill. “
_________
Really? I killed 46 wasps, a thousand or so ants, ran over a lizard by accident and caught some mice in a trap. That’s just today.
You’re invited to dinner, Joe. Yummo!
Prairie dogs are rats....big, ugly, disease ridden, destructive, overpopulated rats.
You boys must be from the city. Worry about where you live and let us Westerners kill our rats. You don’t have to attend.
It gets old. DC and the East coast decides which of our lands can be used, by who and for what. They’ve regulated us into the ground and you know what? It’s not anyone’s business but ours. We promise to not come to your home and tell you how to run your life. Fair?
Not after it takes a 7mm to the center mass.
But you knew that.
I sure did. Just like you know the difference between hunting, where the purpose is acquiring meat, and vermin control, where the animal is probably diseased or otherwise unhealthy to eat.
Prairie dogs carry plague. They are best dealt with humanely at a distance. Using a good rifle is quick and clean and doesn't have the down sides that traps and poisons do which would be the other options in dealing with vermin.
I thought you might be on this thread with some reasoned answer. Those who don’t live it will never get it. One of our big political problems is rural verses urban. The Urbanites need to worry about the garbage in their cities and let us take care of ours.
Post 36.
These guys shoot from a couple of hundred yards away. It’s probably not the blood-fest you have in mind. The excitement is actually hitting a moving target the size of your hand from that far away.
Personally I have about 15 deer terrorizing my land and occasionally me when I’m driving up the drive. They destroyed an entire orchard that my brother planted a couple of years ago. They have spread so many ticks, you cannot even walk in the yard without a biohazard suit. I frequently sit on my deck and take imaginary shots at bambi as they cross in herds to get to my pond. My dogs won’t even chase them off.
You do realize of course, that the same people that want to stop the praire dog shoot would like to lock you up for what you did.
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