Posts Tagged ‘Wyoming’

Pugnacious Pronghorns

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Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Heads down, horns locked, the two bucks engage in competition. Pushing and twisting their necks, they assess one another’s strength and fitness for fighting. Although an obviously serious spectacle for the contestants, this midsummer confrontation isn’t an all-out battle. These two pronghorn (antilocapra americana) are sparring.

Like males of other ungulate species in North America, pronghorn bucks interact throughout the year. In the summer months prior to the mating season in early fall, a dominance hierarchy develops, in part a result of sparring matches such as this one I’m witnessing in southwestern Wyoming. Through these serious, but non-injurious tests of fitness, the bucks determine who’s the strongest. When the mating season begins, these boss bucks will claim herds of does. The subordinates may pester the dominant males from the periphery, but they’re very unlikely to engage one of the top bucks in a territorial battle.

Named for the trademark protrusion or “prong” that extends from the trunk of their horn, pronghorn bucks utilize this tool when sparring. The prongs are used to deflect the horns of their opponent, much like the hand guard protects the arm of a swordsman.

The prongs on the horn of pronghorn (often called “antelope”) are somewhat unique among horned animals. However, they’re not the most unique aspect of an antelope’s horns. The headgear of pronghorn bucks has one characteristic that is unlike that of any other horned animal in the world. Do you know what it is? Let me know.

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Posted in Jack Ballard | 3 Comments »

“Wild” Horses: What’s in a Name

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Thursday, August 4th, 2011


A band of horses grazes placidly in a patch of lush grass in a swale beneath two sentinel buttes in southwestern Wyoming. Ranging on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, these animals belong to the public, not a local rancher. They are wild horses.

Popularized and romanticized by movies such as the animated “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and other works of fiction, a vast amount of misinformation exists regarding wild horses. For one thing, “wild” horses aren’t a separate species from domestic horses. The horses that roam many tracts of public land in the western states are descendents of domestic stock, although some populations have been largely isolated from outside genetic influences for more than a century. Nor are horses native to North America. Horses were introduced to this continent by Spanish explorers. “Wild” horses are no more a part of native ecosystems than spotted knapweed or Asian carp.

Like other non-native species, the impacts of free-ranging horses on native flora and fauna has its problems. Under ideal conditions, horses reproduce rapidly. As their population expands, their grazing negatively affects the foraging of native ungulate species such as deer, elk and antelope. Given their size and habitat preferences, wild horses do not have any bon fide natural predators, although mountain lions may occasionally prey upon the young.

Given their dubious interactions with native ecosystems, many biologists would prefer these free-ranging animals be known as “feral” horses, a term more commonly used for domestic animals gone wild. Seen as “feral,” they reason, perhaps the emotion and romance that surround management of these animals on public lands could be more rationally aligned with science and conservation.

What do you think?

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Brook Trout

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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Location: Horse Creek, WY
My normal fishing waters are in the mountain streams of the Vermont, New Hampshire and the Adirondacks where a big Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) measures 12 inches and weighs a pound. For the record, I’ve never caught one that big, so when I hooked the 18-incher in one of the ponds at the Horse Creek Cattle Ranch near Cheyenne, Wyoming, I would have fallen out of my boat if I hadn’t been in one of those super stable Hobie kayaks. The fish was so strong it towed my boat through the water as I concentrated on preventing it from snapping off the delicate tippet. Fifteen minutes later, when I finally landed the fish, I was ecstatic when I saw how big it was and how vibrant the color.
I can always tell identify a brook trout by the white line on the leading edge of its lower fins, which, on this goliath, was nearly a quarter-inch wide. Just past the spawn, the ruby red in this hefty square-tail’s sides and fins glowed like a flaming band on the horizon just before the sun sets. Its spots looked like mini multi-hued bull’s eye. And the worm-like squiggles on its back were mustard yellow rather than the light pastel typical of the smaller stocked brookies that I usually catch.
Brook trout are not true trout. They are part of the char family. They like the coldest clearest water, which is why I found this one at 7,200 feet above sea level in a pond that’s ice-free for three months per year. Brook trout cannot survive when water temperatures get much higher than 60 degrees. No danger of that here.
The world record brook trout weighed almost 15 pounds. This one was only a third that size, but it was a personal record. As I released it back into the chilly depths, I knew I would remember this fierce fighting fish forever.

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Posted in Entries by Lisa Densmore | No Comments »

Native or Naturalized?

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Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Tromping through a patch of cheatgrass in north-central Wyoming on a mule deer hunt with my brother, I was surprised to hear him observe, “I didn’t realize until I read an article a couple of weeks ago that this stuff isn’t native to this country.”

After discussing the demerits of cheatgrass, its invasive character and poor forage quality for wild ungulates and cattle, I reflected on how my superbly intelligent sibling could have missed this basic fact of botany. A few moments’ pondering revealed the answer. We grew up with cheatgrass. On the western Montana ranch of our boyhood, cheatgrass sprang up on the hillsides and colonized nearly every patch of disturbed soil. Dad hated it, claiming the infected boils which occasionally plagued the jaws of his brood cows were often caused by the spiny seed-heads of cheatgrass which lodged in their gums.

For most folks, living with something as a regular part of their surroundings, be it a plant, bird, reptile, fish or mammal, leads them to conclude that it’s a normal part of the landscape. Thoroughly entrenched, it’s easy to believe an invader is actually a native. However, in the biological world, exotic species that become a “here to stay” part of an ecosystem are called “naturalized,” a term which tends to mask their oftentimes deleterious presence to the truly native species around them.

My brother’s assumption about cheatgrass was one of mistaken identity, confusing a naturalized species with a native. However, the mistaken classification isn’t a big deal. What’s more important is an understanding of what species the invader has displaced and how it has altered the native ecosystem in which it has taken root. Only when this knowledge is in place can communities work to assure that even though naturalized, invasives are managed to have the least impact possible on native ecosystems.

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