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Varmints
Arthur Stamoulis
Varmints
Produced by Dough Hawes-Davies
High Plains Films, 1998
 Varmints
is a disturbing 91-minute look at people’s attitudes towards
prairie dogs. From environmentalists looking to protect them, to government
agents looking to manage them, to land owners looking to control them,
to sportsmen looking to shoot them, this documentary covers all the
bases.
As the film well demonstrates, much of the uproar over prairie dogs
really has to do with their relationship to cows. Some ranchers claim
domestic animals and livestock can injure themselves by accidentally
stepping into prairie dogs burrows, possibly even causing their death.
Even worse, they claim, the dogs eat up valuable grasses that their
cattle could be grazing on.
“My cattle and I like to eat,” sums up one landowner featured
in the film. She went so far as trying to introduce “plague”
into the prairie dog town on her property, explaining, “I don’t
think anything good about ‘em. They’re just simply terrible,
and I think we should get help getting rid of them.”
Local, state and federal government agencies have helped ranchers
rid their land of prairie dogs, spending unknown millions of dollars
on poisoning the animals since the 1930s. The justification always
cited was increasing grazing material for cattle.
 But
some environmental scientists have challenged that claim, pointing
to two basic observations: the fact that bison had thrived where prairie
dogs lived for thousands of years, and the fact that, on any given
ranch, the cattle seem to prefer grazing in prairie dog towns more
than outside of them.
These scientists argue that when prairie dogs “mow” vegetation
in their area, they help new, younger grasses come in thicker — which
are easier for bison and cattle to digest than taller, dried-out grass.
According to them, prairie dog towns do not really compete with cattle
grazing at all.
Environmentalists also consider prairie dogs to be a “keystone”
species, whose survival is beneficial for a good number of other species.
Their holes provide habitat for black-footed ferrets, swift fox, mountain
plover and burrowing owls. Prairie dogs serve as prey for large predators
such as hawks, eagles, coyotes and badgers. They also help alter the
soil composition, which leads to an increase in plant diversity within
their towns. “If you lose the prairie dog, the whole ecosystem
will collapse, much like an arch,” argues one scientist in the
film.
 Still,
a good number of ranchers consider prairie dogs to be a nuisance,
and encourage any and all efforts to wipe them out. This includes
sport hunting, in which hunters literally explode the prairie dogs
from hundreds of yards away using high-powered sniper rifles. Typically,
not enough of the animal is left behind after being hit to use for
meat, pelts or even trophies, so this is truly an activity only for
the sport of it. The footage in this section of men gleefully “flipping,”
“blowing up” and mocking dead prairie dogs is extremely
gory, and after several minutes, becomes almost gratuitous.
A quote from one of the hunters in this segment, Mark Manson of the
Varmint Militia, stands out for its ironic arrogance: “It all
boils down to the fact that they [‘the animal cultists,’
or environmentalists] want everyone eating tofu. They start by saying,
‘Don’t kill. You’re just doing this for the bloodlust.’
We’re just doing this because we love to see blood. Well, it’s
true. We love to see them blow up. You know? Explode them dogs! …
Animals don’t have any rights. Just look at what they do to
each other.”
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