My friend Sharon and I were especially lucky last Thursday. Driving back from Lake John in the northwest corner of North Park, we spotted a herd of female pronghorns. They were intently watching something.
The Harem Watches
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Then, we saw what they saw. Two male pronghorns were running as fast as they could. And pronghorns are fast — they are the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps as fast as 50 mph. In the whole world, only the cheetah is faster. But pronghorns can sustain higher speeds much longer than cheetahs can.
I don’t know how long these two males ran, but I took hundreds of shot of them in a 15-minute period. These pronghorns weren’t playing. They were racing to determine who would win the harem.
The Chase
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People have often written that pronghorns can’t jump. But I sort of think that these two could.
The Jump
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Eventually, they stopped running. That’s when they started to fight.
The Fight Begins
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The Fight Continues
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The Victor
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This pronghorn may look exhausted. But now his real work begins.
1 response so far ↓
1 Herb Fawcett // Oct 2, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Great stuff; and they don’t even kill each other! How very primitive.
Poor guy doesn’t realize the gravity of his success.
Herb
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