Atop the Verde River aquifer sits one of Arizona’s last, large grasslands, a relatively roadless area which supports Arizona’s last, large herd of pronghorn -- and one of the state’s most vibrant cattle-ranching communities.

A new alliance is working to save the land that sustains them both.

• The Big Chino Pronghorn Partnership (.pdf, 39 kb) is a collaborative effort between Big Chino Valley Ranchers, The Nature Conservancy, Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona Antelope Foundation, Prescott National Forest and private landowners in the Big Chino Valley outside of Prescott.
   
• The lush grasslands of this well-managed ranching landscape capture and hold massive amounts of rainfall, which then percolate beneath the soil to emerge as spring water for the Verde River. These grasslands also support the last, big herd of pronghorn in Arizona.
   
• A collaborative project is working to create “Movement Maps" of the pronghorn by collaring 20 animals, and tracking their movements by satellite to provide data to landowners and land-use planners.

How to Map a Pronghorn Herd
Heather Reading, field representative in land and water protection for the Conservancy's Rocky Mountain Region, discusses what it takes to track one of the fastest land mammals on Earth.

Q: What does it mean to map a pronghorn herd?
Heather: Pronghorn need to roam. Roads, poorly-planned development and other infrastructure stop them dead in their tracks. You can see that in our first year of pronghorn mapping, where all the dots bunch up by paved roads.

Q: So, mapping lets you turn pronghorn into "dots"? How does it work?
Heather: Area ranchers allow the Big Chino Partnership to capture and collar pronghorn. To date we’ve collared 15. We do this using the best veterinary science available, darting the animals by helicopter with a mild sedative, collaring them and then protecting them until they are back to normal. We then track them via satellite.

Q: What do the dots tell you?
Heather: The dots are such an important tool! They can show us how the animals move through this big open land. This is important because if paved roads are planned, we can show the road planners where to create migration passages for the pronghorn. 

Q: Why do you think the ranchers want to help you?
Heather: The ranchers know so much about this area, and they are intrigued to learn more about the pronghorn. The ranchers now see them up close and over the years. But no one can understand how they move over time without this level of technology.

Q: Many people are fascinated by pronghorn. Why do you think this is so?
Heather: The longer I study pronghorn, the more amazed I am by them. Pronghorn evolved to escape an ancient, North American cheetah, and even today they can outrun an African cheetah over long distances. They are built for speed. With eyes larger than their brains, they can see almost as far as a peregrine falcon can – up to four miles. They can run across a football field in three seconds flat.

Q: What is your vision for how pronghorn maps can help the Big Chino Valley?
Heather: The vision of the Big Chino Pronghorn Partnership is to protect these open lands that have been so carefully cared for my generations of ranchers. If we can protect the Big Chino Valley, save it from fragmentation, then we save wildlife, ways of life, and water for people and nature.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Pronghorn Herd © Tom Blank; Pronghorn Duo © Janet Haas; Pronghorn Movement Map © The Nature Conservancy

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