Posted: Sunday, May 25, 2008 12:00 am
DAVE PAULI
Perspective
On May 31, a Colorado group calling itself the Prairie Dog Posse will hold its fifth annual "There Goes the Neighborhood Prairie Dog Hunt." Since Colorado bans this type of contest kill and organized contest shoots are not permitted by the Bureau of Land Management on federal land, organizers will move across the border to Wyoming. On private property outside Medicine Bow, thousands of prairie dogs will be killed and horribly wounded by high-powered bullets in what is the lowest form of competition.
Macabre prairie dog contest kills are nothing more really than blood-stained frat parties n with tiny animals mowed down for the "fun" of it, ha-ha - just look again at the name of this spectacle. Compounding the absurdity, Rambo wannabes will compete this year in a "sniper shoot" to see who can kill the most prairie dogs from the greatest distance.
The winners are those who can produce the most number of "tails." Real sportsmen, eh?
Prairie dogs are what biologists call a "keystone species," which means that they contribute to the ecosystem disproportionately to their numbers, and their removal causes greater environmental damage than may be apparent at first glance. Several environmentally important predator species depend on prairie dogs for food, including foxes, badgers, hawks, golden eagles, and endangered black footed ferrets. The burrows themselves, which can stretch for a hundred feet or more, play an important role in loosening and aerating the soil.
Surely by now, we all understand the intricacies of the natural web of life. And everyone except the most blindly callous can grasp that the prairie dog, although only 14-inches tall, suffers the same as a housecat or a toy poodle would if hit by a bullet.
For those who want to pay closer attention, they should consider that prairie dogs are vulnerable to a number of flea-borne diseases. When a large number of animals die suddenly, as in a killing contest, these insects leave the carcasses and migrate to surviving prairie dogs, increasing their flea load. In this way, prairie dog shoots increase the risk of wiping out entire communities of animals.
Boy, what fun!
Oh yes, and then there's the collateral damage. A study conducted by Wyoming-based researchers and published in the 2007 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management found that 87 percent of prairie dog carcasses shot with expanding bullets, the type used in contest kills, contained detectable levels of lead. These carcasses are typically left where they fall, to be devoured by scavengers, in whose bodies the lead builds up over time, potentially poisoning them. Beyond that, thousands of lead bullets are left lying on the ground after a prairie dog shoot to leach lead into the ground and poison the groundwater.
But even if killing prairie dogs in this contest format were not so obviously ecologically reckless, we as a culture know that how we treat animals - yes, get ready for it, this goes for prairie dogs too - is a measure of our humanity. Sitting on a bench all day, not even standing up, with the goal to vaporize animals into "red mist" reflects one of darker sides of human behavior, a side that should have exited a century ago when we banned competitive events like shooting of captive pigeons as an Olympic sport.
Rejecting these contests in which humans kill for a laugh, in which cowardly "snipers" collect tails for trophies does not even require anyone to decide whether they love or hate prairie dogs.
It just requires compassion. Or common sense. Or a commitment by states like Wyoming to join its neighbor Colorado and put an end to bloodsports that have no place in the 21st century.
Dave Pauli is the Northern Rockies regional director for the Humane Society of the United States.