American Notes COLORADO

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 John Vanderpool replied, "Buzz off." And when 40 or so humane activists showed up in Nucla to yell at the gunslingers ("It takes a big man to kill a little prairie dog!"), townsfolk had a ready retort: "Eat some lettuce!" After Nucla counted the money visitors had pumped into the town ($75,000), it was decided to plan an even bigger shoot next year.