This week on Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Facebook page, they posted a video about the capturing and relocating of some of the Pronghorn that roam the grasslands around the Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley areas.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department partnered with the Arizona Antelope Foundation and local private landowners, creating a structure in which to heard and trap the Pronghorn in, using the help from a helicopter in order to do this.
They reduced the size of a herd of Pronghorn by about forty-five, relocating them to a habitat in Southern Arizona near Wilcox, where they’ve built corridors and water areas for the Pronghorn to thrive. If they did not do this, the Pronghorn would be in danger of becoming non-existent in our area due to their habitat growing smaller.
The main reason these groups partnered together in order to do this was the ever growing development of homes, which have been encroaching onto the Pronghorn’s habitat for many years, and is only getting worse. Their hopes in relocating some of the Pronghorn is that it “will increase their long-term chances of survival while boosting and adding genetic diversity to existing populations in the southeast portion of the state.”
This will be a controversial issue in the Prescott area considering the Pronghorn have been around here for a very long time. Many people do not like the growing suburban areas, while others welcome the growth of the town. It is issues like these – building on the habitat of beloved animals in the area and then having to relocate those animals – that were bound to come up with SO MUCH growth in our town.
For Prescottonians who have been here for a very long time, this may be a sad sight to see, the Pronghorns feeling like a little piece of our town. Others will be happy they have come up with a solution to help preserve the Pronghorns and give them a better place to live where their home isn’t being slowly eaten away by encroaching development.
To see the full video, you can visit the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Facebook page here, or visit their website at www.azgfd.com.
What are your thoughts on the topic?