Sage rats

[doyourtime89]

We go every year at least once for a week, kill from 400-1000 a day and the next day you would swear they copulated overnite. Loads of fun and sure tells one how his shooting is doing and how to read the wind. OR have wind Naaawwww.

LEN
[/quote]

Where do you go every year to do some shootin like that.  Over in Oregon or somewhere here in WA.

[LEN]

Burns area, Christmas Valley, North of Prineville all OR.
But I have heard from guys north of Spokane that there are enough to be interesting, waiting for an invite there.

LEN

[redmist73]

Helping the alfalfa farmers..........when I traveled to Oregon, the farmers were glad to see me reduce the Belding  (Urocitellus belding) squirrels that lived in and around cultivated alfalfa fields.  Do a satellite search  in Oregon, say Fort Rock headed east to Christmas Valley and see all the irrigated crop circles  in view.  These fields, when up are like "salad bars" to the Beldings & studies have shown that even 12 squirrels might eat 1,000 lbs. of crop and 200 squirrels eat as much as a 1,000 lb. steer.  In addition and equally important are the mounds, furrows that interfere with harvesting and cause expensive machinery repair..... that was my farmer's biggest complaint.   They are not a protected species in Oregon and do not have a real value except food for larger predators.........and heyyy, it's a beautiful thing as the day is closing, to see eagles come down and shop through the killing fields..........rm73

[magnanimous_j]

I hate to be "that guy" and I'm going to get flamed, (and I won't post in this thread again just so it doesn't drag on forever) but...

This is the kind of thing people were doing *before* passenger pigeons went extinct (or before bison almost went extinct, or the great auk, or a multitude of different shore birds, waterfowl, etc). It also quite possibly could be the most damaging kind of activity to the reputation of hunters as a group. Anything that can be said in defense of this sort of thing WAS being said about any of the aforementioned extinct or nearly-extinct animals I listed (there's actually an incredible amount of literature preserved about people commenting on how many bison, passenger pigeons, etc they shot).

I kill deer, I kill ducks - I've got no problem killing animals. But shooting *hundreds* of anything wild, and throwing them away (if you're eating them or they're destroying your crops, I retract most of this post)... I gotta say it, guys, sorry.

It's disgusting.

There is a big difference between slow growing, long gestating, low litter size mega fauna like Bison and varmints. They breed super fast, have big litters and because of nearby farms, have an artificially large food supply. There just aren't enough coyotes and eagles in the woods to keep their numbers in check. Bison were decimated because they just had no natural defense against rifles. The Indians could only kill so many with their technology. Varmints have a defense against us, they just breed like crazy. Their evolutionary survival strategy is very effective against us killing them all one by one. The Bison's wasn't.

Shooting them to keep their numbers down is the humane option. The other option is poison, which is bad for the soil, the food being grown, and the other critters that die as collateral. I do wonder about the long term effect of shooting thousands of lead bullets per year into the same field, but that's minor in comparison to spraying poison.

The fact that it looks super fun is only a bonus to the actual good it does.

[muzbuster]

I hate to be "that guy" and I'm going to get flamed, (and I won't post in this thread again just so it doesn't drag on forever) but...

This is the kind of thing people were doing *before* passenger pigeons went extinct (or before bison almost went extinct, or the great auk, or a multitude of different shore birds, waterfowl, etc). It also quite possibly could be the most damaging kind of activity to the reputation of hunters as a group. Anything that can be said in defense of this sort of thing WAS being said about any of the aforementioned extinct or nearly-extinct animals I listed (there's actually an incredible amount of literature preserved about people commenting on how many bison, passenger pigeons, etc they shot).

I kill deer, I kill ducks - I've got no problem killing animals. But shooting *hundreds* of anything wild, and throwing them away (if you're eating them or they're destroying your crops, I retract most of this post)... I gotta say it, guys, sorry.

It's disgusting.

There is a big difference between slow growing, long gestating, low litter size mega fauna like Bison and varmints. They breed super fast, have big litters and because of nearby farms, have an artificially large food supply. There just aren't enough coyotes and eagles in the woods to keep their numbers in check. Bison were decimated because they just had no natural defense against rifles. The Indians could only kill so many with their technology. Varmints have a defense against us, they just breed like crazy. Their evolutionary survival strategy is very effective against us killing them all one by one. The Bison's wasn't.

Shooting them to keep their numbers down is the humane option. The other option is poison, which is bad for the soil, the food being grown, and the other critters that die as collateral. I do wonder about the long term effect of shooting thousands of lead bullets per year into the same field, but that's minor in comparison to spraying poison.

The fact that it looks super fun is only a bonus to the actual good it does.

Very well said!