The scourge of the Western rancher is the prairie dog. The prairie dog has several problems that affects the rancher in various ways none of which are good. He eats the grass the cattle could be eating, he sometimes carries the plague which can affect humans, and worst of all he digs these holes all over the place. And since the ranch has literally millions of these critters their impact is compounded.
As you can see here the prairie dog hole is the perfect size and shape for a horse or a cow to step in, and It doesn't take much imagination to see what would happen to a horse and rider if a running horse stepped in this hole. And this is one of the main reason that ranchers try to eradicate as many of these pests as he can
This is one way that a ranch mitigates the prairie dog problem. A lot of people on the ranch carry a gun and prairie dogs are shot on sight, sometimes at close range like this time or out past a quarter of a mile as most of these guys are capable of doing.
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