Prairie Dog Plague in CO???

[GT Accuracy]

Greg, you can't rule out plague because of distance. Coyotes act as vectors for the fleas that carry the plague. They can easily cover 25 miles in a day if they want to. That's the primary way the plague moves is by hitching a ride from one dog town to the next. It took a couple of years for the plague to cross the White River in South Dakota but when it made it across it wiped out towns I had shot for 30 years. Some of those towns have never come back.

I thought of this. From hunting spot to home, is 256 miles. I can't imagine that the plague is that large. Both areas the dogs are down. If that were the case wouldn't it be conceivable that plague would be everywhere? 250 is a large distance.

 

[STS]

I thought of this. From hunting spot to home, is 256 miles. I can't imagine that the plague is that large. Both areas the dogs are down. If that were the case wouldn't it be conceivable that plague would be everywhere? 250 is a large distance.

It’s amazing how efficiently it can move.ive been bumping those little buggers off for about 50 years and I’ve seen two major plague die offs as well as several small local flare ups. The big die offs have started in the northern range of the dogs. Think Alberta and northern Montana and progressed south to Texas , New Mexico and Arizona. It took several years to travel that far but once it started there was no stopping it. If it gets in a town it’s almost certainly 100 percent fatal. For some reason a few local towns are spared and they serve as the seed for a recovery. It took ten years for the towns to recover the first time I saw the big kill. Prairie dogs themselves act as vectors at times. In the fall some of the young disperse and go in search of new ground. I’ve seen single dogs just walking across the prairie ten miles from the nearist town. I suppose it’s nature’s way of genetic diversity. None of the distances that you have mentioned are surprising in my experience. That disease can really get around.

 

[pirate ammo]

I thought of this. From hunting spot to home, is 256 miles. I can't imagine that the plague is that large. Both areas the dogs are down. If that were the case wouldn't it be conceivable that plague would be everywhere? 250 is a large distance.

Don't hit me to hard,,,you kill,kill and more,you wipe out a place it takes awhile to recover,,maybe hit coyotes for awhile,,I don't know P'DOGS,I know PIGS,,kind of like your favorite fishing
hole,,sooner or later the big ones are gone and the small ones need time to grow,,change your tactics,adapt,as I said ,,don't know how fast P'DOGS repopulate,,

 

[JaoeyP]

My friend/co-worker and I decided earlier this year we wanted to do a prairie dog hunt after a few years hiatus. Called our ranchers in SE Colorado and they said numbers are LOW, but there are dogs to shoot. Discussed with buddy and we're still going to go. We are taking steel targets to put out and play with if the PD hunting is too slow. Also taking some rifles that shoot a bit better at distance (243s). We also talked about changing our shooting tactics. Before there were so many we would just have a free for all blast session. We talked about focusing on how far we can hit them instead of how many we could hit. Finally we also decided we just wanted to make the trip to have an opportunity to hang out together and have a good time.

 

[JaoeyP]

Wanted to share an update on this. I'm here in SE Colorado. There are indeed very slim numbers here- very good for the ranchers, very poor for us PD hunters. I did shoot some yesterday but was in no danger of burning up a barrel! The bright side is, there are no other PD hunters out here right now, so the ranchers are putting me on spots I haven't been before and introducing me to friends/family who have some small towns they want cleaned up. My buddy bailed on me last minute so I came out alone. I'll do my best to clean up a few of the small towns they've pointed me towards and head out this evening/afternoon. If you're looking for an all day non-stop blast fest, you likely want to look elsewhere.

 

[jepp2]

So it would probably be inappropriate of me to hijack this thread and tell you how many prairie dogs I shot in the last 2 days of my 30 day prairie dog hunt, wouldn't it?

 

[pirate ammo]

So it would probably be inappropriate of me to hijack this thread and tell you how many prairie dogs I shot in the last 2 days of my 30 day prairie dog hunt, wouldn't it?

if it was just a few,we may feel your pain,,,if you come in with a outlandish number,watch your rearview mirror were following you,,

 

[pirate ammo]

I thought of this. From hunting spot to home, is 256 miles. I can't imagine that the plague is that large. Both areas the dogs are down. If that were the case wouldn't it be conceivable that plague would be everywhere? 250 is a large distance.

doing PIG on the BBQ this weekend,,

 

[GT Accuracy]

doing PIG on the BBQ this weekend,,

Very good - post some photos of the hog when she is done

 

[pirate ammo]

Very good - post some photos of the hog when she is done

didn't think about cooked pictures,,and after the starving people that were here got through there wasn't a whole lot left.

 

[redrockranger]

Wanted to share an update on this. I'm here in SE Colorado. There are indeed very slim numbers here- very good for the ranchers, very poor for us PD hunters. I did shoot some yesterday but was in no danger of burning up a barrel! The bright side is, there are no other PD hunters out here right now, so the ranchers are putting me on spots I haven't been before and introducing me to friends/family who have some small towns they want cleaned up. My buddy bailed on me last minute so I came out alone. I'll do my best to clean up a few of the small towns they've pointed me towards and head out this evening/afternoon. If you're looking for an all day non-stop blast fest, you likely want to look elsewhere.

Plague in Eastern Colorado has been there at least 8 years. Met a rancher there who put a cat in a small pet carrier and put in a dog town in hope fleas would get on the catch feed and watered the cat, then would transport it to his dog town in hopes plague ridden fleas would get it started there. A dog town east of a small Colorado town was there 1 year and gone after the winter snow melted.

 

[moorepower]

In Wyoming in the Thunder Basin grasslands they shut down hunting this year, as the plague about wiped them out. I got over 500 in 3 days last year there.

 

[Silverfox]

I have to agree with STS. Years ago I shot PDs on several ranches in eastern Montana. One of the ranchers told me that if I saw a coyote, "DO NOT SHOOT IT!!!" He said exactly what STS said, "those coyotes carry the fleas from dog town to dog town and I don't want you shooting the plague carriers."

Greg, you can't rule out plague because of distance. Coyotes act as vectors for the fleas that carry the plague. They can easily cover 25 miles in a day if they want to. That's the primary way the plague moves is by hitching a ride from one dog town to the next. It took a couple of years for the plague to cross the White River in South Dakota but when it made it across it wiped out towns I had shot for 30 years. Some of those towns have never come back.

 

[GrocMax]

I bet burrowing owls also vector the fleas. They live in closer contact than coyotes do.

 

[GrocMax]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945311/

Maps of plague and non-plague areas.

 

[STS]

Very interesting study. I am very familiar with one of those study areas. I have shot that area since the early 80's. It's also informative in that it verifies the conclusions that I have made by personal observation of dog populations. I never knew if I had come to the correct conclusion or not. Most of that stuff is simple common sense.

 

[stretch257]

A couple weeks ago we got a call from our host that he had the plague go through his towns. But we made the trip anyway and I am glad we did, there are still a lot of dogs to shoot in Eastern Colorado. Over 2 days, 3 of us shot about 600 rounds each on. A lot of the towns were already well educated. But we found a couple that were good to shoot.

 

[GrocMax]

I thought that study was interesting on several levels, the area I usually shoot in the TX panhandle had an overabundance of PD's during the dry years, and the last 4-5 years when it has been wet have been iffy, they say that plague comes up during wet years, and this county has seen plague. Now this rancher had poisoned some of his fields at the same time, but they were pretty scarce in the non poisoned areas as well, they are coming back strong this year it looks like, currently there Snerting my posterior off, both old and pups are dumb, and in areas we hadn't seen them before.

 

[Tommie]

Drove across Colorado a couple days ago. I70 from Kansas to Denver. A few years ago you’d see all kinds of PD colonies. This trip: almost nothing.

 

[sw282]

l saw firsthand evidence of plague in Union County New Mexico this past weekend.. l visited a deserted town that covered app 5 sections (3200acres).. This town had been active as recently as Sept 2017.. l was told ranchers usually poison twice a year, killing app 30%.. Plague gets them A L L :-(