Early numbers indicate fewer pronghorn permits to be issued this season
There will be pronghorn hunting Oct. 1-9 in Texas, but state biologists will probably issue fewer permits than in recent years.
Aerial surveys ought to be completed in August, but preliminary observations suggest that populations of these prairie antelope have slipped.
These estimates follow a project last winter that moved 200 pronghorn from the Panhandle to the Trans-Pecos region around Marfa.
Many of those animals died, but an estimated 30-40 percent — about 60 to 80 antelope — were still on the range in early July.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department issued 447 pronghorn hunting permits last year and around 600 the year before that, said Shawn Gray, the agency’s pronghorn program leader.
“I’m willing to bet it will be less than that this year,” Gray said. “We’re going to have some hunting, but primarily in Hudspeth and Culberson counties.
“Maybe there will be a few around Alpine, but I’m not so sure we’ll have any around Marfa. It’s a possibility, but it’s not looking good right now.”
Gray added that the Panhandle has good populations, but “some of the fawn crops are pretty dismal.”
It’s easy to blame habitat-killing drought — the culprit for most other wildlife woes around the state — but challenges don’t stop there.
The pronghorn’s range in Texas stretches across the Trans-Pecos, High Plains, Rolling Plains, and Edwards Plateau — a landscape that is characteristically dry.
Predators and disease add to the harsh environment.
As many as 17,000 West Texas antelope were counted in the mid-to-late 1980s, but by 2000 there were only 5,200 of them.
The translocation project last winter had a two-pronged goal to bolster the Trans-Pecos herd while helping researchers figure out what caused population declines.
The Panhandle pronghorn were trapped by helicopter, and then transported in truck-drawn trailers 500 miles south to their new homes in Presidio County. But there was a tense moment on the trip.
One of the vehicles broke down between Seminole and Andrews, and it was about 80 degrees — dangerously hot for the already-stressed antelope, Gray said.
But, he added, firefighters from Seminole came and hosed the trailer down, cooling it. That saved some of the animals, although about a half dozen died.
A total of about 25 percent died in transport, and predators killed a few more on the new range, Gray said.
Then, he added, in late May and early June, “We had a bunch die, 10 or so.”
Two were sent to a lab at College Station where tests showed they died from bloodworms, a stomach parasite.
Biologists are doing more sampling to see if the parasite is prevalent in other Panhandle pronghorn; if not, they’ll know it’s a Trans-Pecos issue.
This project, Gray said, has been a “huge success” scientifically.
“But,” he added, “as far as restoration goes, maybe not so much. And we’re coupled with record drought, so that’s not helping at all.”
