In Colorado, prairie dogs and other small mammals are
safe from large-scale massacre in the name of sport. The Colorado
Wildlife Commission voted unanimously July 10 to restrict contest
shoots of small game, including coyotes and prairie
dogs.
Environmental and animal rights groups have
expressed outrage over contests like the Top Dog World Championship
Prairie Dog Shoot in Nucla, where hunters shot 3,200 of the
burrowing mammals in 1994, when the shoot was last held.
“We fear the public might interpret events like
this to be hunting when they are not,” says Diane Gansauer,
executive director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation, a
conservation group that consists mainly of hunters. “Hunting has to
do with appreciating the outdoors and wildlife.”
But the seven commissioners were less concerned
with ethics than with the contests’ indirect threats to other
wildlife, says Todd Malmsbury, spokesman for the commission.
“Prairie dogs are an important part of the
ecosystem,” Malmsbury says. “(The commissioners) were concerned
that if enough animals were taken this could have an indirect
impact on predators like eagles, hawks and rattlesnakes.”
Now, shooting contests are limited to five
killings, unless the state sets a higher number. So far, no contest
supporters have decided to appeal the commission’s
decision.
Says Gansauer, “An ethical hunt does
not involve racking up bodies.”
*Peter
Chilson
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Prairie dogs beat the bullet.
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