Pronghorns in Central Arizona

"Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play..." The words of this classic poem and later folk song conjure romantic images of the American West and its limitless beauty. But the antelope the author references is actually a pronghorn, mistakenly compared to the Old World animal it so closely resembles.

But interestingly, the pronghorn is the fastest land animal after the cheetah in Africa. But why did it evolve to run so fast from predators that are not a risk to them? Most likely, it's a trait that served their ancestors well before an American cheetah species went extinct some time during the Pleistocene. Its later fate would be tied to that of the buffalo, where over-hunting and range exploitation would come close to dooming it, but where later conservation efforts would assure recovery.

Several years ago I was lucky to discover that pronghorns are not only native to Arizona, but still populate the state. While the native grasslands of both the desert and the highlands have diminished in many areas, enough unperturbed land remains to support a number of thriving herds of the "American antelope." There is even a Sonoran desert sub-species in the extremely arid southwestern part of the state, protected under the Endangered Species Act.

In the mostly flat landscape that separates Mingus Mountain from the Bradshaw Range in the Prescott area, cattle graze on countless acres of open grassland. But a drive along Fain Road, Pioneer Parkway or Highway 89A normally guarantees a glimpse of at least several pronghorns - but often times many - grazing or resting undisturbed and unimpeded. Like the 19th century words of Dr. Brewster Higley, they are truly, "home, home on the range."