On our last hunt just a few days ago (mid June 2008) we were shooting over our first town of the day when a rancher from the nearby farm house came barreling down a hill and strait through the dog town. We stopped shooting and backed up; waiting to see what he had to say. He came closer and we could see he was smiling and knew we weren't in any trouble. He just thanked us for getting rid of the “little pests” as he said. He told us he's been living on that ranch for 84 years now and never before have the dogs been this populated and this bad. He explained how they eat the grass around their mounds, and as some towns stretch over three square miles, the grazing area for the rancher's livestock is greatly diminished.

Every now and then as you're driving around the old country roads, you see bones of cows that died without anyone even knowing it. They stepped in one of the dog's holes and broke their leg. Laying out in the middle of nowhere, no one even knows the livestock is slowly dying, nothing anyone can do about it.

If the prairie dog population isn't controlled, Mother Nature will do its work cleaning them up as well. Last year we were planning on going out to Wyoming to shoot some on a man's ranch. He called just a few weeks before we were going to leave and told us to forget about coming. The bubonic plague had gone through the dog towns, killing everything, including some livestock. He informed us six of his workers had been infected as well and were rushed to the hospital. If Mother Nature doesn't take its effect on the towns, most ranchers just choose to have them poisoned, a slow and painful death.

So those are the reasons we do what we do. Thanks for reading my article, if you liked it please comment and select the liked it button. Maybe this will explain the reason behind our videos and change your mind about it being heartless and cruel (for those hater comments).

Below is our first video.