Pronghorn Wrestling 101

In my opinion, everyone should have the opportunity to play tackle football against a bunch of wild-eyed, stinky pronghorn antelope at least once in their lifetime. My chance came yesterday as a few of us at work drove up to Wayne County to help in the yearly pronghorn relocation event. Basically we were capturing pronghorn near Loa (where they are thick as rabbits) and transplanting 50 to the Panguitch area (where there are substantially less). The whole event is a serious hoot. In a nutshell, the helicopter "herds" small groups of animals into a round trap. When they have 30 or so animals in the trap they let 15 to 20 "muggers" (that's codeword for crazy guys and gals that either missed high school football and want a try at it or those that want to relive the glory days) into a separate section of the trap. After some quick remarks by the guy in charge to get you all pumped up, they ease back the divider and let 5-10 animals escape into our section of the trap. This is pretty much where all hell breaks loose. The muggers then attempt, as quickly as possible, while carefully avoiding horns and flying hoofs, to grab hold of and detain each of the animals by any means possible while avoiding injury to themselves or the animals. Let me be perfectly clear. This isn't like running cows into the squeeze chute, its more like trying to capture the greased pig at the fair, only these "greased pigs" have really sharp horns and very powerful legs with sharp little hoofs. When all of the muggers finally have their dance partners under semi-control, the door to the trap is opened and the animals are carried to the waiting trailers. The comparing of battle scars and the telling of war stories are the norm as we pile in the trucks to drive the animals to the release site, where they will make a new home.

Opening the Trailer Doors and Speed Comes Out