TUCSON, Ariz. — State officials expect Arizona's antelope population to benefit from a wildlife juggling act that took pronghorns from one area and sent them packing across the state.

The Arizona Department of Game and Fish rounded up nearly 200 pronghorns from the Prescott Valley area this week and redistributed them in order to boost genetic diversity among other herds and, in one case, to re-establish a vanished population.

Eighty-eight of the 186 animals that survived the capture and transport were released at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Smaller groups were placed on the Arizona Strip and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, among other areas.

Arizona now has about 12,000 antelope, down from about 50,000 to 100,000 when Europeans first arrived in Arizona, said Ray Lee, big game management supervisor for the state game department.

He said the population took big hits in the 1960's during severe snowstorms that decimated populations unable to move because of the proliferation of barbed wire fences. Encroaching urbanization then took its toll.

"They've never recovered," said Lee.

Ed. note: Arizona also relocates their sheep for better genetic diversity. Wonder why NDOW doesn't do any of this?

Reprinted from Las Vegas Review Journal, January 14, 2000