RESTORING ANTELOPE

Pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) may some day be returning to the arid rangelands of Washington State with the help of Matt Berger, wildlife biologist with the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT) and a graduate student in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. Matt is studying the feasibility of bringing pronghorn antelope back into Washington to restore a cultural resource that was historically important to tribal members on the Colville Indian Reservation.

Pronghorn antelope were extirpated from Washington State after large-scale European settlement, however, archeological and ethnographic records indicate that a small population may have existed here up to the 1900s. According to Matt, the decline and eventual loss of this beautiful animal was probably caused by multiple changes occurring throughout the region, including loss of habitat to farming and ranching, fencing that restricted movements, and especially, unregulated hunting.

Not really an antelope at all, the "pronghorn", as it is sometimes called, is actually an ancient species dating back nearly 20 million years and the sole survivor of a unique group of mammals that evolved exclusively in North America.

GHOSTS OF PREDATORS PAST

Some evolutionary biologists think that pronghorn antelope may be adapted to escape predators that no longer exist such as the prehistoric cheetah that once roamed across the plains of North America. The fastest land mammal in North America, and possibly the second fastest runner in the whole world, pronghorns are capable of reaching peak speeds over 86 km per hour. Pronghorns are beat for speed by the African cheetah, although only for short distances. While cheetahs quickly become winded after a short burst of extreme speed to capture a prey animal, pronghorns can run at sustained high speeds for 3 or 4 minutes and cover long distances, perhaps making them the overall land speed champion.

Pronghorns are well adapted to living in the harsh environments of prairie grasslands and sagebrush rangelands of the western United States. Many people know that the bison or buffalo populations numbered in the tens of millions in the grasslands of central North America before they were nearly driven to extinction by unregulated market hunting. However, the pronghorn antelope population may have been as large as 40 million animals, perhaps even more numerous than bison before they too succumbed to habitat changes and human hunting. Pronghorn were never as abundant in the Pacific Northwest as in the central and western plains areas, but they were common enough to be hunted regularly by native Americans.

Market hunters killed millions of animals and shipped trainloads of meat and carcasses to west and east coast cities until a market glut made the meat almost worthless. Farmers and ranchers continued the killing, sometimes mistakenly believing that pronghorns competed with their cattle for forage. In reality, pronghorn antelope were well adapted to follow along behind large grazing herds of bison, which like domestic cattle, consumed grass, while the pronghorns browsed on broad-leafed plants, shrubs, and sagebrush.

By the early 1900s, pronghorn antelope had declined from millions of animals down to about 10-20,000 individuals, a number that could easily have been driven to complete extinction had not strong hunting laws and conservation efforts been established starting in the 1920s. Restoration efforts that include transplanting new herds into vacant habitat have succeeded in bringing the pronghorn antelope back into relative abundance in North America, although it is still only a fraction of historical population levels.

WASHINGTON STATE REINTRODUCTION

In 1938, what was then the Washington Game Department attempted to reintroduce pronghorn antelope back into the state, but the small population dwindled, perhaps because of poaching, and it too went extinct. To avoid repeating this situation, Matt Berger feels it is necessary to use the best available scientific information on antelope ecology and population dynamics to design the reintroduction program and to secure a large piece of suitable habitat to guarantee the protection of the animals while the initial population grows.

Matt says that the CCT Tribal Wildlife Department has identified the Tumwater Unit, consisting of several adjacent pieces of land totaling over 10,000 acres, as potentially suitable for the reintroduction of pronghorns. This reintroduction site appears to be ideal for pronghorn because it is a large basin with grassland and shrub-steppe habitat and two perennial streams. Because the land can be protected and managed by the Tribal Wildlife Department, it will be possible to gradually restore additional habitat, such as riparian corridors along streams and larger areas of upland shrubs, which are used by pronghorns for browse during harsh winter periods.

Matt's graduate study at WSU will involve a complete assessment of the feasibility for reintroducing pronghorn antelope into Washington State. Matt will use information gathered on pronghorn biology in other regions to assess the suitability of the habitat on tribal lands. In addition, he will work with a faculty committee of WSU wildlife ecologists and conservation biologists and use advanced population modeling techniques to project the probability of success of using different reintroduction strategies. Matt says, "it is important to determine whether it is better to try and establish a new population with one large introduction, or whether it is better to bolster an initial population with repeated introductions over several years. Otherwise, a lot of time, money, and effort could be wasted."

The mathematical modeling, which will be completed with the help of graduate committee member, Dr. Robert Wielgus in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, will be used to project different potential population management scenarios. Wildlife managers can then more realistically estimate the full costs of a reintroduction program and determine whether it is both ecologically and economically feasible.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Even if the feasibility study indicates that a reintroduced population of pronghorns could survive and grow, there are many other practical problems that must be considered. According to Matt, "biologists in other states report that antelope do not transport well in trucks and vehicles and extreme caution must be used to capture and handle the animals and get them to the release site as quickly as possible. Fortunately, disease issues are relatively minor for pronghorn antelope, unlike for deer and elk populations that are experiencing disease epidemics across the United States and often cannot be transported across state lines. If this were not the case, I don't think we could get animals shipped into Washington very easily."

Potential source populations have not been formally identified, although Matt feels that a number of states, such as Oregon, Montana, or Wyoming, might be more than willing to help return antelope to Washington State. Ironically, Matt says that, "some states might want to exchange a few sharp-tailed grouse from Washington for antelope, but the numbers of native Columbian sharp-tailed grouse have plummetted over the last 50 years and are no longer abundant enough to be shared with anyone. We've got urgent work to do on this species as well to keep it from going extinct in Washington just like the pronghorn antelope. It's far easier and cheaper in the long run to conserve and manage wildlife habitats to keep species from going extinct in the first place than to try and reestablish them again later. It's a hard lesson we seem to have to learn time and time again."

Fortunately, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is also interested in returning pronghorns to Washington in other locations and their wildlife biologists will be collaborating with Matt and the WSU faculty research team to assess the feasibility of pronghorn reintroductions. If WDFW were to pick a second location in Washington State to reintroduce pronghorn antelope, there might eventually be two places in the state where people could once again watch these graceful animals race the wind across the open landscape.

8 January 2004

Contact: Campus & Community Ecology Project