I've just returned from Winnet, MT area [Flatwillow Creek] where we went to shoot prairie dogs.

In the same area that we shot 200-250 a day last year - we had to work hard to get 50 a day this year.

The dogs just did not appear to be there. These were good weather days, sometimes a bit windy, but overall sunny and low 70's each day.

My question is: are the prairie dog populations down this year or were we just unlucky in being taken were the dogs were not?

And, while I'm here: Any suggestions of good prairie dog outfitters in MT or WY.

Also, is there any good PD shooting in the Southwest?

Les

Les,

Prairie dog populations are highly cyclic. That is why dedicated pd shooters will spend hundreds of dollars and days on end locating new towns.

Case in point, a town that I have been shooting for years is "dieing out" and just over a mile from that town another is expanding and doing well. Another town that died out 4 years ago is finally starting to come back. All of these towns are within two miles of each other.

Can't help you on the other requests.

Later, pdhntr

I agree with pdhntr1. Prairie dog town die outs are most famously associated with Plague, but there are other pathogens as well. As with any animal population, weather and competition/predation from other species can also play a role in population fluctuations. Also, many landowners/leaseholders have been unwisely stampeded into poisoning towns due to the threat that the prairie dog might be listed as Threatened and thus prevent them from doing anything to them (unwise as that might be to begin with.)

The most important factor, however, is habitat, and unless that is preserved/restored any species is vulnerable.

Most of the places I shoot dogs are on family owned farms and we see the cycle all the time. I personally don't think you can 'shoot' a dogtown out. Pds suffer from some heavy predation from raptors, coyotes, rattlesnakes among others. There is one field we shoot that .....at least at the present........seems to just always have alot of dogs. Its not big ....380 acres but just covered with dogs that never get shot at by anyone but my son and I. It seems to be that one place that hasn't ever cycled.

Far and away more prairie dogs....at least around our farm die off from poisoning than all other reasons combined.
I said it before "one man on an ATV and some pellets can kill more pds in two hours than an army of guys with rifles can in a month"

The populations of white tailed PDs are down due to the western drought. Two years ago I saw PD with black rough patches of skin that were hairless. I asked the Div of Wildlife about this and was told that the patches were the result of stress caused by the drought. I have hunted PDs in one area for over thirty years and some years have gotten over 500 pd in a week. This year I was out for one day and saw 12 PDs all day.I did not shoot any as I want the area to populate. In years past there were fields of weeds and grasses and this year it was dry with few weeds. In the early spring the young PDs need the early spring grasses that are moist and tender as their digestive tracts will not tolerate the harsher plants the older PDs can eat. My 2 cents.