{"id":7368,"date":"2024-05-18T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=7368"},"modified":"2024-05-18T11:00:22","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T18:00:22","slug":"wyomings-famous-for-its-iconic-pronghorn-but-dont-call-them-antelope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/18\/wyomings-famous-for-its-iconic-pronghorn-but-dont-call-them-antelope\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyoming\u2019s Famous For Its Iconic Pronghorn \u2014 But Don\u2019t Call Them Antelope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the perks of living in Cheyenne is when you get outside of our small city, you usually see Pronghorn. On a back dirt road once we saw one in full gallop go across the road and without slowing down squeeze under a barbed wire fence. Another perk is just south of the city we have the Terry Bison Ranch, and we often see Buffalo off the I-25 when going or coming from Colorado. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.com\/2024\/05\/12\/wyomings-famous-for-its-iconic-pronghorn-but-dont-call-them-antelope\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Step into wildlife biologist Rich Guenzel\u2019s office and there will be no doubt about his passion for pronghorn — an iconic Wyoming animal affectionately known as \u201cspeed goats.” Just don’t call them antelope, unless you’re looking for a brawl…<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Mark Heinz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The office of wildlife biologist Rich Guenzel in Laramie has depictions of pronghorn created by artists from all over Wyoming and the West. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LARAMIE \u2014 Step into Rich Guenzel\u2019s office here, and there will be no doubt about his passion for a particular iconic Wyoming species affectionately known as \u201cspeed goats\u201d \u2014 but just don\u2019t call them \u201cantelope\u201d in front of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The critters are properly called pronghorn, and his office suite is bursting with artwork depicting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you call them \u2018antelope,\u2019 you\u2019re espousing ignorance or misinformation,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t take nearly the offense at the more colloquial nickname speed goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think speed goat is almost a term of endearment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as he sees it, using the term \u201cantelope\u201d to describe the speedy, hardy creatures that roam in huge numbers all across Wyoming\u2019s wide-open spaces detracts from their uniqueness and their special place among the Cowboy State\u2019s wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pronghorn aren\u2019t in any way related to true antelope, which live in Africa. They\u2019re unique to North America, and Wyoming is the very heart of their territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no fossil evidence of pronghorn anywhere outside of North America,\u201d said Guenzel, who worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department from 1986-2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He retired as the agency\u2019s Laramie District wildlife biologist. He studied and monitored wildlife of all kinds, but pronghorn were always his favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen people ask me what I do know, I tell them I\u2019m a pronghorn specialist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with the WYldllife Fund, he and his wife Mary recently established a conservation fund exclusively for Wyoming\u2019s pronghorn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How They Came To Be<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At one time, perhaps as recently as 13,000 years ago, there were as many as 13 species in the pronghorn family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, the modern pronghorn are the sole survivors \u2014 they have no living close relatives anywhere else on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an estimated population of 382,000 pronghorn, and even after massive die-offs during the brutal winter of 2022-2023, Wyoming has more pronghorn than anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHistorically, at one time, we had more of them than everybody else combined,\u201d Guenzel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herds of them roam from Canada all the way south to California\u2019s Baja peninsula, and as far east as Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evolutionary history of the critters still isn\u2019t exactly clear, Guenzel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep in their past, they shared a common ancestry with giraffes, he said. And so, giraffes are their only remaining cousins \u2014 albeit distant cousins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ancestor species of pronghorn likely arose in central Asia and eventually made their way into North America across the Bering Land Bridge between what are now Russia and Alaska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Built For Speed\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Legend has it that pronghorns\u2019 vision is as good as a human\u2019s looking through a set of 10-power binoculars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not exactly true, Guenzel said. They do have an incredibly wide field of vision, and the structure of their eyes allows them to pick up even the tiniest of movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not like they have built-in zoom lenses or anything like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If vision is their best tool for detecting danger, sheer speed is how they escape it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re built for speed,\u201d Guenzel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheetahs are thought to be the fastest land animal. At least over short distances, they\u2019re faster than pronghorn, although that could be up for debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What isn\u2019t disputed is that pronghorn can keep up a frantic pace, sometimes 40 mph or more, for miles at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They developed speed as their ultimate defense mechanism because in ancient times, North America had a \u201ccheetah-like\u201d species of big cat that hunted pronghorn, Guenzel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was probably more along the lines of a long-legged lion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing Many Dangers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But with those quick cats long since extinct, adult pronghorn can easily outrun any predator in existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, predators must settle for pronghorn fawns. Eagles, coyotes, bobcats and sometimes wolves will snatch fawns whenever they get the chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pronghorn have responded with high reproductive rates, Guenzel said. Does frequently give birth to twins, and sometimes triplets, although usually only one fawn survives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being hunted by humans, pronghorn can perish from winterkill or drought, Guenzel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re usually pretty healthy,\u201d although rare strains of pneumonia have taken a heavy toll on herds in parts of Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why Does Game And Fish Call Them \u2018Antelope?\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hunting tags and regulation for the species issued by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department refer to the animals as \u201cantelope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guenzel said he\u2019s not exactly sure why that is, because it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the statutes establishing Wyoming\u2019s hunting regulations and the like date back to the 1800s. And that\u2019s back when the term \u201cantelope\u201d for pronghorn really caught on, likely because early European explorers and settlers didn\u2019t know what to call them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, people just started calling them antelope because they were at least somewhat familiar with the African species. It\u2019s likely that the term \u201cantelope\u201d was written into the game statues back then and just never have been changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And correcting the official Game and Fish language and regulations to \u201cpronghorn\u201d might not be as simple as one might think, Guenzel said. Only the Wyoming Legislature has the authority to officially change the language in statutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, unless the Legislature decides otherwise, pronghorn will continue to be called antelope, at least on hunting tags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other contexts, such as in publications, Game and Fish refers to them a pronghorn, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans Hurt, And Help<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pronghorn can be vulnerable to human development, Guenzel said. Fences or other man-made barriers can keep them from migrating to where they need to get to in order to survive, particularly during the winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, other development such as water troughs or ponds built by ranchers can benefit pronghorn, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guenzel hopes the pronghorn fund can go toward preserving the herds\u2019 vital migration routes, such as the \u201cPath of the Pronghorn\u201d running between the Teton area and the Upper Green River Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he wants the tenacious and speedy masters of Wyoming\u2019s vast sage flats to be fully appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom a tourism perspective, you can go into a shop and buy a goofy moose trinket,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd as much as some people in Wyoming hate wolves, you can buy a T-shirt with a wolf on it. Why don\u2019t we have more things depicting pronghorn?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the perks of living in Cheyenne is when you get outside of our small city, you usually see Pronghorn. On a back dirt road once we saw one in full gallop go across the road and without slowing down squeeze under a barbed wire fence. Another perk is just south of the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7373,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions\/7373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}