Other grad student projects Part 2: Pronghorn Capture

A couple weeks ago Texas Parks & Wildlife (with the help of Sul Ross grad students!) moved 200 pronghorn antelope from the TX panhandle down here to the Trans-Pecos.  Not too long ago the number of pronghorn in the Trans-Pecos far outnumbered the number of pronghorn in the panhandle.  Due to reasons not quite understood yet, it is now the panhandle that holds more pronghorn.  In my first blog post I mentioned that I drove back from the panhandle with a TPWD Biologist, Billy.  He told me that the population of pronghorn in the panhandle is about 10,000 individuals - about 2x the number of pronghorn currently residing in the Trans-Pecos (I'll abbreviate this TP from now on).  There have already been several hypotheses about what is causing the decline in the TP pronghorn populations - which biologist and managers believe to have first started back in the 1990's when there was a series of severe droughts in the area.  Currently, research is being done on many different variables that effect pronghorn population growth including rainfall, fawn survival, predator impacts, diseases, habitat suitability and much much more!  About 80 of the 200 pronghorn that were transported down here are radio collared so that their movements can be monitored, and starting in about a month, TPWD (again with the help of Sul Ross grad students) will be capturing fawns to put collars on them also (hopefully I'll be able to help with that - and if I do you'll hear all about it!).  The entire pronghorn recovery project is probably the biggest and most popular wildlife project going on in the TP at the moment, which means it has received a lot of attention and a lot of funding (leaving my apparently meager little project in the dust! Oh well...).  There is currently one (soon to be 2) grad students here working on different aspects of this project - and several undergraduates who will be working as technicians on the project as well.  So it's a pretty big deal at the moment.

Anyway, I'll spare you all too much more background and just jump right into the pictures.  I don't think I have quite as many pictures from this capture since I was only there for part of one day (I had to leave to get back to the TP at a reasonable time in order to get up early to do my own field work the next day!).  But I'm pretty sure I still got some pretty good shots.  Oh and a couple more things... this was a MUCH bigger production than the mule deer capture, so there were MANY more people at this one.  The pronghorn were given a light sedative to help reduce the stress - they are very finicky animals.  We had to be extremely careful of their legs - if any of the pronghorn received leg injuries at any part of the capture or release they had to be put down, they simply would not survive without the use of their legs.  It was still a great experience, but I have to admit... after being at this capture with all these people, it was nice to do the mule deer capture with only a few of us - that way we each had many more opportunities to get in there and handle the animals.  Still, I was able to do some handling with the pronghorn... as you'll see now :)

Here is what the processing stations looked like (there were four of them).  You can see the stretcher that they put the pronghorn into.  It keeps them (relatively) still so that they don't thrash around and hurt themselves.  There are four holes that their legs go through and seat belts that belt around the top of their bodies - below there are pictures of the what it looks like with the pronghorn strapped into one of these. They are also designed to keep the feet of the animals from touching the ground - if they did they'd start trying to run away. To the left of the stretcher is a table that has all of the equipment that the vets needed to process the pronghorn (test tubes for blood samples, thermometers to keep track of the body temperature, and lots of other stuff too).  They also put ear tags on each pronghorn (I helped get the ear tagging tools loaded up, but didn't actually put any of the ear tags on).  And then the Sul Ross grad students working on the pronghorn project (well one grad student, and one undergrad - soon to be grad student) were in charge of putting on the radio collars.

If I remember correctly those four men standing around the table there are the vets that were there to do some of the processing work.

This is the helicopter that they used for this capture.  The capture crew that helped with this transport is actually from New Zealand!  Their accents were so cool :)  For those of you who heard me talking about the bighorn sheep capture back in December (I didn't help with that one since it conflicted with my travel plans home for the holidays), this was the same capture crew that helped with that project.

Here is one of the trailers that they used to haul some of the pronghorn back to the TP - this is actually the truck that I rode back in. Billy is one of those guys standing next to it, but it's hard to see their faces so I won't even try to point him out.

I was lucky enough to have at least one capture attempt happen pretty close to where we were stationed so that I could get these cool shots!  Those animals that you see to the left of the helicopter are all pronghorn!  I don't know how much you all know about pronghorn but they are the fastest animal in North America and can reach speeds of more than 50mph!  The capture crew were using a larger sized net because that way they didn't have to slow an individual pronghorn down too much in order to catch it.  The more the helicopter spends trying to slow down one herd, the more stressed the pronghorn get. So although they chased this herd around and did isolate a couple individuals (as you'll see in the next pictures), they didn't actually catch one from here at the time.  They could tell from the helicopter that they pronghorn were getting hot and didn't want to over stress or overheat them.

I know this picture is a little grainy and a weird shape, but I cropped it and zoomed in to get a better look at the herd.  I thought this was a good picture because although the herd is still there, it is barely visible since they have kicked up so much dirt!  A lot of times we could see the dust in the area of where the pronghorn were - but couldn't actually see the pronghorn!

This picture is cropped and zoomed into also.  You can see the one pronghorn that the helicopter was able to isolate from the rest of the group.  Still they decided not to capture it at the time since they figured it was too stressed to be handled.

Ok, here is a video of what it looked like when the pronghorn were all hooked up to the helicopter and being brought to us.  You can see that they carry more than one (unlike the Mule Deer capture where the only carried on at a time).  If you ask me, the pronghorn look a little more comfortable than the mule deer did :)

Here is a good example of why it was hard to get a lot of the hands on part at this capture :)  Somewhere in that pile are the pronghorn that are being untied by all the people standing around there.

Here you can see how the pronghorn fit into the stretcher.  Eventually, I think most of the handlers felt it was easier to keep the legs tied (like they were for the mule deer) and just laid them on the stretcher on their sides, instead of untying their legs to put them through the stretcher holes.  Still, their legs had to be untied eventually so they could be put in the trailers.

Yay! I got to carry one! Well... help carry one, there were at least 2 people to every pronghorn.  Good thing too, because there is no way I could have carried that on my own.  They are heavier than they look!  The guy helping me is another TPWD Biologist.  He is in charge of Black Gap - the area where I am trying to catch a bear!

I may have been carrying a heavy animal, but I still made sure I smiled for the camera :)

The picture on the left is showing some handlers trying to get the pronghorn onto the trailer.  Again, there were so many people there (which was necessary for this part) that it was hard to really see what was going on. The picture on the right is what the inside of the trailer looks like with the pronghorn inside.  This was the large trailer that is seen in one of the earlier pictures I posted.  It was actually eventually divided up into 3 different sections so that there were not as many animals grouped together.

Here is a close up of a pronghorn :)  They're a little different looking!  When you're this close it's obvious how different they look from other ungulates like white-tailed deer and mule deer.  You also get a fairly good look at what their ear tags look like - each one has a different number (1-200).

I included this one because you get a good view of what one of the radio collars look like.

Ok, last video.  This is the release of the pronghorn we were hauling in our truck.  I know it is hard to see since it is nighttime, but you can still see enough to know what is going on.  There were some media people there taking pictures, which can be a little annoying at times, but the publicity is good for funding! But they would take pictures of the pronghorn as soon as they stepped out of the trailer - basically blinding them... like they weren't confused enough, now they had bright lights flashing in their faces!  We asked them a few times to wait a little before they took their pictures, or at least try not to flash the pronghorn in the face, but they still did.  Oh well... here it is :)

That's all I have for the pronghorn capture!  I have never worked with pronghorn before, and probably never would have had I stayed in the northern half of the country to get my master's degree (same with the mule deer, actually), so I am pretty glad to have had this experience!

This upcoming week is spring break for me and I made some last minute plans to drive out to Florida to visit my best friend Kira and her husband Rob, who moved there this past September.  We were even lucky enough to find a cheap airplane ticket (even on such short notice - we bought it Monday!) for my boyfriend, Bob, to fly down for just the weekend so that we can all hang out together!  I'm so excited about it, but not so excited about making the 2 day drive alone!  Anyway, I may or may not post something while I am away, but if you're already subscribed to the blog then you'll get an email if I do!

Thanks for reading!

Until next time, Laura :)