Posted on 09/15/2009 9:24:10 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Pronghorn antelope tangle with a fence in Wyoming's upper Green River Basin in fall 2008.
Unable to hurdle the barrier, they're forced to squeeze slowly through or underneath the wire--or turn their backs on a 6,000-year-old annual trek. At 125 miles (200 kilometers) long, the migration is one of the longest among land mammals.
Last fall and spring, biologist and photographer Joe Riis, funded by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, became the first to document the entire pronghorn migration on foot. The experience made clear just how arduous human-made hurdles--fences, roads, natural gas fields, housing developments--are making the journey
In Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park a day-old pronghorn fawn snoozes away a June day in 2009. Within a few days, the animal will be able to outrun a human. Adult pronghorns are among the world's fastest land animals, reaching speeds of about 53 miles (86 kilometers) an hour.
Newborns tend to literally lay low--the better to avoid predators--until they get their legs under them, photographer Joe Riis said. Photograph by Joe Riis/Pronghorn Passage
Wow. That's an epic migration if I've ever seen one.
I had a pair of antelope boots I got in Denver maybe 20 years ago. Most comfortable boots I ever owned! I couldn’t jump fences worth a darn in them though, now I know why.
I dunno. I saw an epic movie once. It looked more epic than this migration. Maybe they eventually catch a plane to DC where “tens of thousands” of them get together.
I live in Wyoming and pronghorn are thicker’n flies here.
The only reason why those pronghorn didn’t go over that fence is because they didn’t want to. I’ve seen them take big, graceful leaps over cattle fences - they’re able to do it just fine.
They go thru or under fences....
Lot's of WT deer do the same....
I worked on the Walt Whitaker Ranch 20 miles southwest of Douglas, WY. I used to chase pronghorn on horseback. There were hundreds of them on the 10,000 acre spread. They can easily jump barbed wire fences. Seen them go over many times. Used to chase mule deer also. They would slip under low trees and I had to slide off the saddle to the side as my quarter horse would not stop once he was on the chase and would literally have scraped me off at high speed in to a branch! Great fun!
6,000-year-old annual trek. BS
You’ve got remember this isn’t about saving the antelope, it’s about getting the landowners to give up the land without being paid for it.
Yeah, I’m so worried about global warming that I’m thinking about buying stock in Artic Cat and that apparel company with the commercials featuring “one tough mother.”
Our goats could have cleared that fence from a standing start, but they were lazy and would have just pushed until the wire broke.
The only thing dumber than an animal is a nature photographer.
I dunno, Pronghorn are pretty stupid!
But in pronghorn-land, they utilize two separate cattle guards, one about 15 feet from the other. I was told by a local that the reason for that placement was that pronghorn can leap that far.
Thus, the author's attempt to editorialize and create sympathy is a FAIL.
More importantly, though: how do they taste?
Now we know why Cecil B. DeMille never did nature films.
Pretty gamey. They're essentially goats with turbochargers.
Pronghorns did have difficulty getting over fences early on in the fencing of the west because they had simply never encountered them before, which is understandable. Over generations they have slowly learned.
Their biggest problem is they like to save energy and plowing through snow takes a lot of effort, so they tend to favor following train tracks where trains have broken through the snow for them.
As a consequence they sometimes find themselves on tracks between two fences when a train comes, and not much room to leap, so they try to outrun the train on the tracks instead. Splat.
They have been slow learners at getting over fences because unlike deer in wooded country they have less need for high jumping, though they are excellent long jumpers. But they are learning to adapt as time goes by to fencing in general, by watching each other’s solutions and failures at getting over or under the wire in open country. The problem is they’re probably not adapting well to fencing along railways ... because these snow free or minimally drifted areas are so attractive to them that they bunch up there and the whole group gets killed in one instant. There’s not as many experienced survivors to pass on a solution to this type of barrier...and since they can use the tracks and get trough the fencing leisurely many times in complete safety they may be overconfident and unwary of the danger when their use of the tracks happens to coincide with an oncoming train.
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