PRONGHORN OF WYOMING'S HIGH PLAINS
It was fantastic, we got within metres of bugling bull Wapiti, saw moose at a dozen yards, laid eyes on Grizzly bears and got a 10,000km taste of what the American landscape has to offer. I wasn’t travelling all the way around the world and not going hunting somehow though!
We didn’t have the time to do a full on backcountry trip, I was calling this trip a scouting exercise, but we would have time to try something completely new and chase some Pronghorn around the plains.
Pronghorn are a taxonomically unique species, commonly referred to as an antelope. In ancient times there were five species of high plains antelope but Pronghorn are the only ones left. They’re a funny looking animal that rely on incredible speed and eyesight. Few predators can get close undetected given they literally have eyes in the back of their heads, and the ones that do get close can’t keep up when they take off. Their powerful hindquarters will push them along at 60 mile and hour (yes that’s 100ks!) So it’s not uncommon to have one keeping pace with you as you cruise along the freeways.
It’s not predation that regulate Pronghorn numbers, it’s winters. Central USA has brutal winters, they have cold and deep snow unlike anything we see in New Zealand and the severity of those winters determines how many Pronghorn survive. When we visited there hadn’t been a bad winter for a long time, and it
