As the National Rifle Association might put it, guns don't kill prairie dogs, people do. Scores of people with a peculiar craving to mow down the critters in large numbers showed up for the first Top Dog World Championship Prairie Dog Shoot competition, conducted July 14 and 15 in Nucla, Colo. (pop. 1,000). When the smoke had finally cleared, 2,956 prairie dogs (which farmers and ranchers consider a nuisance) had been executed.
The competition attracted impassioned complaints from animal-rights groups, but Nucla was not fazed by the protests. When Governor Roy Romer asked the town to cancel the festive slaughter, Mayor...
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