The Pronghorn Principle

Pronghorns grazing the Llano Alto

As we've traveled around New Mexico sightseeing with our visitor from California, we've passed by a number of stands and herds of the ubiquitous but elusive pronghorn, the North American antelope-mimic that people can spend a lifetime Out West never outwitting or even seeing.

In our area, they graze with the cattle as the sun goes down in the late afternoon and early evening, trying to blend in as it were, passing for dappled calves you might say, though we have seen them in the fields at high noon as well. They get through the barbed wire fences with ease, the cattle seem to enjoy their somewhat skittish company, and the grazing land seems only lightly touched by their presence.

Yesterday, as we passed by the grazing herds of cattle and pronghorn on our way to a literary evening at the IAIA south of Santa Fe, we noticed the antelope were all keeping approximately the same distance from the road, about 800 to 1000 yards, just beyond the distance it was easy to see them or a rifle shot might reach, and I thought, "How wise. These animals are very sharp." Indeed.

Pronghorns

The backside of a herd of pronghorns somewhere between the VLA and Socorro

 

There were three herds within about fifteen miles along our route returning to Socorro from the VLA site in the San Augustin Plain. Two of them showed only their backsides, the third -- which we didn't get any pictures of -- was face on and very close to the road. Between each group of pronghorns were cattle, most of them on the nearly 19,000 acre Kokopelli Ranch.