Entering Colorado pronghorn territory to observe their habits and behavior was a new adventure. It all began with a nature walk in an area where home builders are hard at work converting prairie into an expanded neighborhood. It immediately developed a passion for keeping track of what the pronghorn herd was up to and possibly finding their bone or shed horn artefacts.
Since moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1991, I have often seen herds of pronghorn antelope grazing in the surrounding grasslands. Pronghorn antelope were a daily sight during my commutes to Schriever and Peterson Air Force Bases (AFB) during my service in the United States Air Force (USAF) and later as a government contractor in Colorado. In high school, my class would study Indian cave drawings depicting antelope hunts. Growing up on the East coast near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the pronghorn is known as a symbol of the great wide West – the famed American frontier of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Southwest. This is a place far away from city life, where history comes alive and dreams can come true.
In November 2020, I took an interest in observing pronghorn close up, studying their habits, behaviors, movements, and artefacts such as footprints, droppings, skeletal remains, and shed horns. I made other wildlife observations such as blooming cactuses, prowling coyotes, sprinting jackrabbits, soaring eagles, perching red tail hawks, and the fluttering of various small birds. The serenity and quiet of the seemingly endless and timeless grassland, a feeling of insignificance and smallness within the harsh and vast outdoors of God’s immense and pristine. Ancient Pronghorn Petroglyph, Buckskin Gulch in Southern Utah (Public Domain Stock Photo) (Indians of the American Southwest revered and hunted pronghorn.) 3 creation, was of particular awe. The thought that pronghorns only live to about 10 years in the wild brought to mind how quickly our time on Earth is fleeting – what are we to do in this short time? My wife, LaDonna, and several family members have joined me on such safaris.
Lastly, exploring pronghorn seemed like a lifetime opportunity. For example, in “Built for Speed: A Year in the Life of Pronghorn,” author John Byers (originally from upstate New York) spent many years observing pronghorn by traveling to remote north-west prairies of the National Bison Range in western Montana. I was presented an opportunity to study a pronghorn herd in my own Colorado neighborhood, although the rapid housing development would quickly diminish this opportunity – the time was now!
It is surprising how close pronghorn thrive to human populations as the battle for prairie acreage is waged and repeatedly won by the bulldozer. The pronghorn live their daily lives and thrive in any open grassland, farmland, or cow pasture along the Colorado Front Range. As farm and ranch land gave way to housing developments, the pronghorn enjoyed hanging around in “their” territory right up until the moment houses were built. Many of my observations were made. Family Adventurists and Horn Sheath Discovery (Szczur, 2021) on pronghorn in a new housing development where families were moving in, just south of the thick pine tree groves of the Black Forest, Colorado.
Professor Jim has shared the complete adventure in his new book “Exploring the Neighborhood Pronghorn Community“ for people interested in Colorado wilderness adventure and encountering prairie wildlife, especially the pronghorn.
