The Dodge<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The white pickup truck thunders North on hwy. 789. It\nturns West on a dirt truck, bucking over bumps, rocks and ruts. The track turns\nNorthwest, but the truck turns West on to a new smaller, rougher track. It\nreaches another fork and stops. At the fork is a sign:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c<- No Public Access\n->\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truck hesitates,\nuncertain, debates internally, and then turns around and goes back the way it\ncame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truck comes upon a small cluster of pine trees,\nsurrounded by the rolling sagebrush steppe. The truck slows down, a window opens\nfor a better look, then it stops. The doors open and people pile out. We walk\naround the trees and search the branches for raptor nests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another truck pulls up- it stops- a man gets out. He says\nthat he\u2019s looking for horses (a close evolutionary ancestor of trucks). He\nleaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We find an owl in one of\nthe trees; but we don\u2019t see a nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ntruck returns to the highway and flies back South. It comes upon a green truck\nalso driving south. The green truck is labeled \u201cGame and Fish\u201d. The green truck\nflashes its lights and then pulls over to chase some pronghorn, stuck in a\nbarbed wire fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you know that Pronghorn antelope can attain a top speed close to 60 miles per hour?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pronghorn\nevolved this incredible speed in order to outrun one of their predators, the North\nAmerican Cheetah. North American Cheetahs went extinct towards the end of Pleistocene.\nWhile antelope have retained their incredible speeds, they are useless against\ntheir new modern predators: the internal combustion engine, and the barbed wire\nfence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Antelope\nregularly attempt to race and elude fast moving vehicles; the vehicles often\nwin, but unlike the cheetahs are unable to digest pronghorn (at least for a few\nmillion more years).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pronghorn\naren\u2019t good at getting through traditional barbed wire fences. The countless\nmiles of fence out here hinder their migration. Wildlife friendly fences with a\nhigher smooth bottom wire help to mitigate this problem. Marking fences with\nblack and white plastic clips make fences more visible to sage grouse which\nmight otherwise fly into them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trucks\nuse gates to cross fences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zeke Zelman<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SOS- intern Rawlins, WY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Dodge The white pickup truck thunders North on hwy. 789. It turns West on a dirt truck, bucking over bumps, rocks and ruts. The track turns Northwest, but the truck turns West on to a new smaller, rougher … Continue reading