tried to reintroduce them a few times between 1930 and 1970, but had no success.<\/a><\/p>\nTribal wildlife managers took the lead in the past couple decades. The Yakama Nation released 99 pronghorn in 2011 and another 99 in 2018 and 2019. The most recent survey conducted by the Yakama Nation and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife counted 337 pronghorn in that population. Neither WDFW or the Yakama Nation allow hunting for the species.<\/p>\n
The Colville Tribes began looking at introducing pronghorn more than two decades ago, Whitney said. He has worked his entire career with the tribal wildlife program, and participated in some of the early studies as a biologist.<\/p>\n
Habitat studies showed that there was food, water and cover, and plenty of open space. Setting up a relocation of the animals from one state to another, though, proved challenging. Plans didn\u2019t work out until he became the tribal wildlife manager. In 2015 and 2016, the tribes got a total of 150 pronghorn from Nevada and released them on the reservation.<\/p>\n
Radio collars showed biologists where the animals went. They learned quickly that pronghorn don\u2019t like fences \u2013 instead of jumping over a fence, they go under it, and if they can\u2019t do that they\u2019re kind of stuck. Whitney said early collar data showed pronghorn bouncing between fencelines, unable to get through.<\/p>\n
When they can move, though, they\u2019ll really move. One group crossed the Columbia River, and there\u2019s now a herd of 125 or 150 south of the reservation, Whitney said. A much smaller group went all the way to Ritzville.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, the animals have shown they can thrive in Washington. Despite droughts and wildfires, the population has continued to trend upward.<\/p>\n
Whitney estimates there are between 250 and 275 pronghorn on the reservation now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been slowly growing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With growth rates and other indicators looking good, Whitney proposed offering a single hunting tag this season. Seasons are set in threes, so that will be the plan for the next two seasons at least. After that, they\u2019ll reassess.<\/p>\n
Erik Dippold, secretary of the North American Pronghorn Foundation, said the work by the Colville Tribes and the Yakama Nation show what\u2019s possible with pronghorn conservation, and that the species can survive and become a viable part of the landscape in Washington.<\/p>\n
Having a hunt take place, Dippold said, is \u201cabout as beautiful an example of what the point of conservation is that I can come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyd grew up on the Colville Reservation. He started hunting when he was a kid, and loves chasing elk in September and whitetails during the rut. He\u2019d seen pronghorn around before but didn\u2019t know about the tag drawing until a friend mentioned it to him.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d been applying for special hunt drawings for years, so he added it to the list and didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n
It was just his year, drawing wise. His name was pulled for three tags: archery moose, archery mule deer and pronghorn.<\/p>\n
Pronghorn season started Sept. 1. The night Boyd notched his tag was the third time he\u2019d been out. It was just going to be a scouting trip at first, at least until he saw the buck.<\/p>\n
It was smaller than he\u2019d expected when he walked up to it, but it was still a nice buck. He and his friends gutted it and carried it out of the field.<\/p>\n
The head went to a taxidermist, the meat to the freeer. He\u2019s eaten some of it since and said it\u2019s \u201cpretty alright,\u201d but that he still prefers deer.<\/p>\n
It was a fun hunt, he said. When the buck went down, he didn\u2019t know what to think.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t really feel real at the time,\u201d Boyd said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pronghorn buck was facing the wrong way and the light was fading. It was early September. Zyven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-280587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}