Antelope

Outrunning Everything but the Fence:

The Pronghorn in Montana History

A Misnamed Animal

Montanans call it the antelope, as did the explorers who first wrote about it, but the name is a misnomer. True antelope are native to Africa and Asia. The pronghorn, Antilocapra americana, is the sole survivor of a North American family, the Antilocapridae, and its physique records an evolutionary history shared with predators that no longer exist (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "Pronghorn (Antelope)"). The authors of the National Park Service's monograph on Yellowstone's herd credit that inheritance for the animal's speed: it can hold about 45 miles per hour for more than a mile, faster than any predator now living on the continent (White et al., ch. 1). Montana's wildlife agency calls it the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "Pronghorn (Antelope)").

Speed answered one kind of danger. Montana's pronghorn history is largely an account of the dangers it did not answer: the rifle, the hide market, the plow, and the wire fence.

Native Hunters and the Corps of Discovery

People hunted pronghorn in what is now Montana long before anyone wrote the animal down. Archaeologists describe it as a significant food resource for Native peoples across western North America, taken by several methods, including communal drives of herds into corrals, although the physical evidence for large drives of the kind used on bison is limited (Lubinski and Herren). The Yellowstone monograph describes driveways built of brush, poles, or rock near Reese Creek, on Mount Everts, and at the base of Bunsen Peak, and notes that hunters used hides for clothing, sinew for thread, and bone for tools (White et al., ch. 2).

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met the animal in quantity on the Missouri River in the spring of 1805. On 5 May, camped near present Wolf Point, Lewis recorded buffalo, elk, and "goats or Antelopes" feeding on every side, and noted that the party killed whatever it wished. He judged the flesh of elk and pronghorn inferior to the other game. His dog ran down one pronghorn, a pregnant and emaciated female, and Lewis added that wolves and bears destroyed many animals as they swam the river in spring, when they were weak and easily taken in the water, and that Native hunters also took them in numbers at the crossings in spring and autumn (Lewis). Four days later, near the site of present Fort Peck, Clark reported herds of buffalo and goats too numerous to count in every direction (Clark). Two journals, kept by different men within the same week on the same river, report the same abundance.

The Hide Trade

Estimates of how many pronghorn lived on the continent before settlement are reconstructions, not counts. A 1925 Department of Agriculture release reasoned from the size of the bison herds and the larger range of the pronghorn to a conservative figure of 30 to 40 million. The National Park Service gives roughly 35 million, and the Yellowstone monograph says tens of millions (United States, Department of Agriculture; National Park Service; White et al., ch. 1). The sources agree on the order of magnitude, not on precision.

The slaughter that followed is better documented. The Yellowstone monograph reports that market hunters killed pronghorn in large numbers during the 1870s and 1880s and cites traders' shipments. In 1874, 33,407 pounds of pronghorn hides left Bozeman, which the authors equate to 11,000 to 12,000 animals. In 1875, a Fort Benton trader bought 33,980 pounds of deer and pronghorn hides, roughly 11,325 animals (White et al., ch. 2). The conversions are the authors' estimates, and the shipping totals rest on that single compilation. The general pattern is corroborated elsewhere. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks reports that pronghorn were shot by hungry farmers and unregulated market hunters while railroads and plowed fields replaced hoofed wildlife with cattle (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "Pronghorn (Antelope)"). The National Park Service adds that ranchers viewed pronghorn as competitors for forage (National Park Service). Harold Picton, a Montana State University wildlife professor, and Terry Lonner, a retired chief of wildlife research for the state, describe the use of wildlife in settling Montana as a catastrophe by the end of the nineteenth century (Picton and Lonner).

The Narrowest Point

Yellowstone's herd shows the sequence in miniature. Pronghorn once summered in the high country of the park and wintered down the Yellowstone Valley through the Paradise Valley, a range of 50 to 80 miles. By the late 1880s about 200 remained in the park. In 1905 the acting superintendent reported that ranchers' wire fences, running in every direction, had shut off the old winter range completely (White et al., ch. 2).

Continental numbers reached bottom in the early twentieth century. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says the North American total fell below 15,000 by the early 1900s (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "Pronghorn (Antelope)"). A Biological Survey census of 1922 to 1924 counted about 30,000 animals in 286 scattered bands (United States, Department of Agriculture; White et al., ch. 1). The two figures come from different dates and methods, and the sources do not reconcile them. Montana's share was roughly 3,000 animals around 1920 (White et al., ch. 2). Picton and Lonner arrive at a compatible number by another route: Montana later trapped and transplanted almost 4,000 pronghorn, a thousand more than existed in the entire state in the 1920s (Picton and Lonner).

Trap Nets, Trucks, and Transplants

Recovery began with law and money. Congress passed the Pittman-Robertson Act in 1937, directing an excise tax on sporting gear and ammunition to state wildlife work (White et al., ch. 1). Montana's legislature accepted the funds in 1939, and the state's Wildlife Restoration Division began operating in 1940 (Picton and Lonner).

Restoration meant moving animals. Yellowstone staff captured about 966 pronghorn between 1946 and 1968 and sent 868 to release sites in five states, including hundreds to the Madison Valley and to the Paradise Valley and Livingston areas between 1947 and 1957 (White et al., ch. 2).

The same methods served emergencies. In the winter of 1964-65, which the Interior Department called one of the bitterest on record, pronghorn driven south from Canada stalled near Chinook and Malta, where Montana Fish and Game agents found them in January, starving in deep snow. The Bureau of Land Management joined the state, and crews used airplanes, helicopters, and horses to herd the animals into trap nets, then loaded them onto trucks. About 125 went to Utah to found new herds, most of the rest were released on eastern Montana grasslands, and more than 400 survived (United States, Department of the Interior). The migration across the border was not new. James Beer's 1944 survey in the Journal of Mammalogy had described Canadian pronghorn drifting into Montana with winter storms and returning in spring (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "History of Wildlife Migration").

By the 1980s pronghorn exceeded one million across North America, with roughly 20 percent in Montana (White et al., ch. 1). Present estimates run from nearly 500,000 on the Park Service's page to more than one million from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which adds that the species occupies only fragments of its historic range at nowhere near pre-settlement abundance (National Park Service; Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "Pronghorn (Antelope)").

The Fence Problem

Recovery has not restored free movement. Pronghorn can jump but seldom do. They prefer to crawl under a fence, and a smooth bottom wire at least 16 inches above ground works best (White et al., ch. 1). Montana researchers tested that proposition at scale. Jesse DeVoe, Kelly Proffitt, and Joshua Millspaugh followed GPS-collared females in six Montana herds from 2019 to 2021 and recorded 5,581 encounters with mapped fences. Pronghorn altered their movement in about 42 percent of encounters with woven wire but only about 16 percent with ordinary strand wire. When movement was altered, the animals failed to cross woven wire within 48 hours 88 percent of the time, against 55 to 57 percent for strand fences, and those that did cross took about 14 hours on average. Fences with low and high bottom wires produced nearly identical responses, which complicates the conventional 16-inch rule (DeVoe et al. 8-9, 11).

Yellowstone's herd illustrates the stakes. Counts held between about 200 and 235 animals from 1996 to 2005, and the National Parks Conservation Association puts the northern herd at fewer than 200 by 2004 (White et al., ch. 2; National Parks Conservation Association). Since 2010 that organization and more than 1,000 volunteers have removed or modified dozens of miles of fence in Montana's Paradise Valley (National Parks Conservation Association). The Park Service now reports 500 to 600 pronghorn in Yellowstone and the southern Paradise Valley as of 2024 (National Park Service). Dispersal north began earlier. Eleven pronghorn appeared near Carbella in 1998, and by 2014 about 121 used the area, the first significant return to the southern Paradise Valley since the early 1900s (White et al., ch. 3).

Elsewhere in Montana the picture is less settled. Between 2020 and 2024, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the University of Montana collared more than 700 adult females in eight study areas. Some central and eastern populations remained below half the agency's goal, the researchers did not identify a clear cause, and most populations studied stayed on their winter ranges rather than migrating (Desroches). The DeVoe study likewise found that resident animals made up 65 to 94 percent of collared pronghorn each year (DeVoe et al. 4).

A Note on the Evidence

Several findings above rest on two or more sources: Montana's roughly 3,000 pronghorn in the 1920s (White et al.; Picton and Lonner), the abundance Lewis and Clark described (Lewis; Clark), the market-hunting pattern (White et al.; Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; National Park Service), the winter movement of Canadian pronghorn into Montana (Beer, as quoted by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; United States, Department of the Interior), and the Yellowstone herd's low point near 200 (White et al.; National Parks Conservation Association). Others rest on one. The hide-shipment totals and the 1905 superintendent's report come from the Yellowstone monograph alone, which cites period newspapers and agency reports not consulted here. The Lubinski and Herren article was read in abstract only, and Beer's article is known here only through the passage Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks quotes. The digitized 1925 release is partly illegible on the national total; White et al., citing the same census, give about 31,000. Pre-settlement totals are estimates, not counts.

Works Cited

Clark, William. Journal entry, 9 May 1805. Lewis and Clark Research Database, https://lewisandclarkresearch.org/journal/clark-may-9-1805/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Desroches, Kayla. "To Ease the Migration of North America's Fastest Land Animal, Collaboration Targets Fencing." Yellowstone Public Radio, 18 July 2024, https://www.ypradio.org/wildlife-outdoors/2024-07-18/to-ease-the-migration-of-north-americas-fastest-land-animal-collaboration-targets-fencing. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

DeVoe, Jesse D., et al. "Fence Types Influence Pronghorn Movement Responses." Ecosphere, vol. 13, no. 12, 2022, article e4285, https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4285. Copy hosted by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/conservation/pronghorn/15---ecosphere---2022---devoe---fence-types-influence-pronghorn-movement-responses.pdf. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Lewis, Meriwether. Journal entry, 5 May 1805. Lewis and Clark Research Database, https://lewisandclarkresearch.org/journal/lewis-may-5-1805/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Lubinski, Patrick M., and Vicki Herren. "An Introduction to Pronghorn Biology, Ethnography and Archaeology." Plains Anthropologist, vol. 45, no. 174, 2000, pp. 3-11. ScholarWorks@CWU, https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/anthropology_museum_studies/85. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "History of Wildlife Migration and Movement in Montana." https://fwp.mt.gov/conservation/wildlife-management/wildlife-migration/history. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

---. "Pronghorn (Antelope)." https://fwp.mt.gov/conservation/wildlife-management/antelope. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

National Park Service. "Pronghorn." Yellowstone National Park, 17 Apr. 2025, https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/pronghorn.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

National Parks Conservation Association. "Yellowstone Pronghorn Project: Restoring Ancient Paths." 3 Apr. 2020, https://www.npca.org/resources/3308-yellowstone-pronghorn-project-restoring-ancient-paths. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Picton, Harold, and Terry Lonner. "Montana's Wildlife Legacy: Decimation to Restoration." Intermountain Journal of Sciences, vol. 15, no. 4, 2009, p. 59, https://arc.lib.montana.edu/ojs/index.php/IJS/article/view/2019. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

United States, Department of Agriculture. "Only 30,000 Antelope Survive in North America." News release, 2 Sept. 1925. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Historic News Releases, https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1925/19250902A.PDF. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

United States, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. "Snow-Driven Antelope Given New Homes on the Range." News release, 2 Apr. 1965. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Historic News Releases, https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/historic-news-releases/1965/19650202.PDF. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

White, P. J., et al. Yellowstone Pronghorn: Recovering from the Brink of Extirpation. National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/upload/download_YELLOWSTONE-PRONGHORN-BOOK.pdf. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.