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View the list of upcoming broadcasts and screenings of High Plains Films.
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"Recent Words"
DePauw Magazine, Winter 2001
Hawes-Davis is at the top of his craft in these independently produced
documentaries dealing with two of the prickliest animal rights issues in the West.
In Varmints, his first feature-length film,
Hawes-Davis chronicles the relentless efforts to obliterate from the Great Plains
the lovable prairie dog, a cause celebre for animal rights activists and object of
hatred for ranchers. Through interviews of a wide range of people, from ranchers to
preservationists, he covers the spectrum of issues involved in the great debate:
Is the prairie dog the scourge of agriculture and cattle ranchers, or a linchpin of
a healthy ecosystem in the West? Because the film is punctuated with footage
showing members of the Varmint Militia - a group that hunts prairie dogs for
sport - blowing away the helpless critters from a distance with high-powered rifles,
one can't help but root for the underdog. Hawes-Davis takes on another animal
rights issue bristling with controversy in his most recent documentary,
Killing Coyote. Here too, the debate is
whether the coyote is a wild creature worthy of protection, or should it be
eliminated as a threat to the ranchers' livelihood. The filmmaker again presents
a wide variety of film footage and interviews people on both sides of the
controversy. Similar to the Varmint Militia, Hawes-Davis depicts a group of
hunters who gather annually in Wyoming for the sole purpose of luring coyotes
into the open in order to shoot them for the thrill of the kill. Hawes-Davis
is an independent filmmaker based in Missoula, Montana.
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