|
Threats
Illegal hunting, habitat destruction, livestock fences that hinder access
to natural ranges
STATUS:
ESA -- ENDANGERED
(as subspecies sonoriensis and peninsularis)
SIZE:
Weight:
75-140 pounds (34-64 kg)
Body Length:
40-60 inches (102-152 cm)
HABITAT:
Semi-arid desert, grassland and shrubland (map shows ranges of all subspecies)
CONSERVATION:
Monitoring in Arizona
Despite their speed and agility, pronghorns will not jump fences. It's believed that, since they evolved on the wide-open prairies where there was always room to run around obstacles, they simply never developed the ability to leap over them.
In the U.S., limited sport hunting of pronghorns is permitted. About 40,000 animals are killed annually. In Mexico, where both the Sonoran and Baja subspecies are listed as Endangered, illegal hunting remains a significant threat.
|
The Last Survivors
Pronghorns evolved in North America millions of years ago and have never existed anywhere else. As the last surviving members of their evolutionary group, they are like the last copies of books in an irreplaceable library. Once they're gone, a vast endowment is lost forever.
Pronghorns are supremely adapted to their
natural habitat: semi-arid desert, grassland and scrubland. There are no good hiding places in these areas, so they rely on excellent eyesight and blinding speed for protection from predators. They are believed to be the fastest quadrupedal animals in North America, capable of speeds of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h). They are able to survive in territories that humans consider wasteland, eating a wide variety of plants including thistles, cacti, and sagebrush. If necessary, they can get by without drinking water, obtaining moisture from the plants they eat.
Unlike the antlers of deer, which are shed annually, the horns of pronghorns (in both males and females) are joined permanently to their skulls and only the horny sheaths that cover them are shed.
To the brink . . . and back
Two hundred years ago pronghorns ranged from Canada to Mexico, and from Minnesota to Washington state. There may have been as many as 40 million of them. The spread of agriculture in the American West and Midwest drastically reduced the pronghorn's range, and unrestricted hunting took a huge toll. By the 1920s, the total pronghorn population was between twelve and twenty thousand animals -- a reduction of more than a thousand fold.
The pronghorn was saved from extinction by a concerted management effort that included conservation organizations and hunters' groups, and by the gradual restoration of former farmland to pronghorn habitat. Today, about 750,000 to 1 million pronghorns (including all subspecies) live in North America.
|
