Охота на Луговых собачек

Prairie dogs are, as everyone knows, not dogs, but a kind of rodent. They have been called so for their specific alarm call, that resembles yaps of a dog. This alarm call signal is said to be highly sophisticated: it can render not just that a predator is approaching, but what predator, at what distance, and from which direction. Prairie dogs live in large colonies, known as “towns”, all over the Great Plains in the USA and Northern Mexico.

Prairie dog hunting is almost entirely about shooting. A hunter, equipped with an accurate rifle with a powerful scope, and a rangefinder, approaches a prairie dog “town”, selects an animal, takes aim and shoots. If that sounds easy, you probably never tried it. To hit such a small target at the range of a few hundred yards is a challenge in itself. In fact, the modern sniper rifle owes a lot to “varmint rifles” designed for prairie dog shooting. The hardest part of the job is that the shot will have to be taken very quickly: like most rodents, prairie dogs are very active, and will not give you all the time in the world like a paper target. Many rounds of ammo will spend their energy on dry prairie ground before a newbie hunter learns to hit prairie dogs reliably.