"PATH OF THE PRONGHORN"

One summer dawn fifty years ago I was driving north near the Canadian border on a gravel road when a pronghorn antelope buck appeared on the horizon. He posed there on his ridge, scanning the prairie with huge black eyes. I was no concern of his. Gaping, I slowed to a crawl. The low sun gilded this impossible creature with its elegant horns, body marks like a bird (tawny above, milky below, striped neck), and legs thin as steel wires.

There was a mechanical beep. Eyes back to the road, here was a local rancher in his pickup reminding me that there was two-way traffic so I wouldn’t slam into him. He wasn’t angry, because he understood. He laughed and waved as I moved back to my own side. We see pronghorn antelope around here all the time, but we never get accustomed to them, never take them for granted. I welcome this beautiful book about this incredible -- literally, not quite believable -- animal.

I can’t quite scan the whole book because it is extra wide, just about the right width to open across two laps, perhaps an adult and a child. The photos are large and copy is minimal, so that there is plenty of room to share thoughts and point out details to each other. Copy gives you the basic framework for understanding where these creatures came from, how they are entirely unique, and why they persist on a threatened landscape. This is not a thick book -- 34 pages -- but each page offers a meditation on the long branchings and mergings we call evolution and this miraculous instance of adaptation to the American steppe of high sagebrush country where there are no trees and little water.

Cat Urbigkit, who supplies the words, is an excellent photographer in her own right, taking advantage of her life on a Wyoming ranch to accumulate enlightening and endearing moments. I knew her first through the blog called “Querencia,” (coded as “www.stevenbodio.blogspot.com”) where she is one of a team of several who keynote dogs and hawks. Cat’s ranch uses the big heavy dogs of central Eurasia to defend the sheep against predators. She chronicles in words and photos the lives of individual animals as well as their ecological context.

Cat’s half of the dedication went to “Arlo Bean,” so I googled to find whatever brilliant mentor that might be and found this x-rated video. I was impressed by the button-on diapers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLXjZZILGk

Mark Gocke’s work is at www.markgocke.com. These are youngish, healthy, athletic, family-minded people so you might be reassured to look at Mark’s photos of a Grateful Dead concert. They aren’t, you know, totally un-hip. Personally, I prefer my animals non-human, and Mark’s gallery of photos is an excellent resource for studying anatomy and environment. One would be cheating to just paint a reproduction of a photo and there’s no need anyway.

The theme of this book is the great migration of antelope in herds like the better-known waterfowl migrations up and down the prairie, beginning with the birth of the first tiny (seven pound) fawns. In weeks they can outrun almost any predator, including a pickup if the ground is rough enough, but they never get particularly big. They eat rough brush, not just grass. At a hundred and twenty pounds full-grown, they are the smallest game ruminant on the continent, occupying most of the West half. This particular herd summers in the Grand Teton National Park and is called the “Sublette herd” because of being in Sublette County. (I looked at the websites: not quite 6,000 residents and zero stoplights. Pronghorns don’t stop much and evidently the humans don’t either.)

If you look up Sublette County, you find a lot of information about mountain men who rendezvoused here in what has turned out to be Big Piney and Green River. They would have valued antelope leather, not the fur which is crimpy hollow hairs almost like the bristles of a soft brush, and they would have been happy to make a pronghorn fawn into a handy “possibles bag” to hang from a belt. But trappers and hunters are not mentioned here.

What makes this migration instructive is that a long-existing natural bottleneck created by two rivers has been crowded by humans so that the pathway is now only a half-mile wide. The six thousand-year-old path, if pinched shut, would greatly interfere with the pronghorns, so there is some urgency in preserving the route. Attention to migration routes and the need to keep them open has been a relatively late development in preservation circles since the torrents of animals only travel through twice a year rather than staying.

The route often travels within view of some of the most archetypal and photogenic mountains in the Rocky Mountain cordillera, which form a backdrop for the antelope as they speed past, then stop to stare. They are curious and confident of their ability to outrun anything, nearly fast enough to elude camera shutter speed. One humorous photo shows a pronghorn scoffing at a speed limit sign of 25 mph. They can achieve bursts of sixty miles an hour. Some scientists believe that their hurtling runs evolved because of a cheetah-like animal that is now missing for some reason, but once achieved, this ability has served them well.

The emblematic prong-shaped horns are actually developed from hairs fusing around a bony prominence. This “sheath” falls off of the bucks annually in the same way as the more familiar antlers of a deer being shed. When fully developed and seen from the front, they suggest the outer edges of a heart shape. From the side they are like fronds arching over the ears. Their black noses and long-lashed eyes make them seem almost doll-like, but they are fierce fighters.

Those who name everything in categories, usually derived from animals already known in Europe, called the pronghorn the Antilocapra americana. They couldn’t decide whether it was an antelope or a goat (capra) so they just threw in both names. The same problem arose with the mountain goat, which is actually more like an antelope.

The technical information in this book is simple enough for a child with a little coaching but thought-provoking enough to satisfy an adult. “Path of the Pronghorn” makes an excellent gift, even for a Westerner who sees them every day and never tires of their elegance.