Pronghorn Antelope

[DaveA37]

I want to get something off my chest about the way some people call the pronghorn antelope, a "goat", "speed goat", etc. The pronghorn antelope is NOT a goat and deserves to be called what it indeed is, an PRONGHORN or ANTELOPE. :evil:

The Pronghorn Antelope, native to ONLY No, America, is a magnificant creature deserving more respect. You don't hear anyone calling an elk (wapiti) a "mule", then why are we allowing pronghorn antelope to be called by a different name. I try to make this same point whenever I hear somebody say, "I shot a good goat". For example, a particular bow hunting tv personality (which I happen to like) used the term "goat" at least 15 times when describing his success after shooting a nice (pronghorn) ANTELOPE buck during his tv filming. (made my blood boil).

Let's hear it for the, Pronghorn "ANTELOPE"

I'm down off my soap box now........ :mrgreen: So the critiques can begin.

 

[DrMike]

Your point is well taken. However, there is considerable unfairness in the names that are commonly given to North American animals. Every European knows that an elk is misnamed in NA. Elk is what we refer to as "moose." Call it what you will, "swamp donkeys" still taste good. And what we call elk is "wapiti." However, our forefathers gave them their names, and their misadventure in linguistic terpsichore stuck. The North American buffalo is a bison. However far afield we have strayed from proper names, they are still massive and require a lot of work to prepare for the table. Mountain goats are more properly referred to as chamois. Hopefully, none of us will cease hunting these magnificent creatures because we don't really know what they are.

 

[SJB358]

Good point. I like Teddy Roosevelt's name for the pronghorn----- the Prong Buck the best anyhow! Scotty

 

[FOTIS]

So prairie sprinter is out? :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[ROVERT]

I believe that you'll find calling them "goats" is no more inaccurate than calling them "antelope". Their nearest relatives through biological classification go the whole way back to class. That means they have their family, genus, and (obviously) species all to themselves. They're just as much goat as they are antelope, or giraffe for that matter. Actually, I believe they're most closely related to the giraffe.

Anyway, call them what you like. I hope to go on a speed giraffe hunt someday in one of our fine western states.

 

[Kodiak]

ROVERT says it.

According to Montana F&G Nov/Dec issue of "Montana Outdoors", the pronghorn antelope is indeed related to the Giraffe.

In over 35 years of antelope hunting the west, I have heard many residents there call the antelope, "goats". Go figure,


Jim

 

[CatskillCrawler]

I wouldn't let it get to your goat...

 

[257 Ackley]

Dave -
Not sure how many times you have hunted them or watched them run when getting away from a predator, but they can move faster than anything I have hunted and will always be speed goats to me :lol:.

The giraffe thing gives this a whole new twist.

 

[cloverleaf]

Dave,
I addressed the question of "Pronghorn" a while back and while I cant find my original post I will give you the .02 of my opinion. It can be true (althought you wont hear it on this board) that Pronghorn is the Rodney Dangerfield the of the big game world. Sure its true, you can drive into the right pasture and take a 400 yd crack at a Pronghorn, and get your buck. If thats hunting or not is up to you. Somtimes IMHO, they will just stand there because nothing for a million years has been a threat to them. They have been able to see and outrun any threat and still do on a regular basis. They are pre-historic survivor. As we know they are not stupid. They can hear your truck from the next section, can probably see you for twice that far, and are often gone before you knew they were there. They have a nose too. Maybe not as good as a whitetail, but its there. A pronghorn can make a quarterhorse look like a shetland pony, and do it over country that will turn a good 4 wheel drive into a pile of parts before it hits 40 MPH. Youve seen them slide under the bottom wire of a cattle fence like a major league ball player coming into home plate, and barely break stride as he continues on the other side. Ive seen a pronghorn do a standing broad jump of those same fences...... They have made me look a fool time and time again.

OK,Ok, .... I'll get off my soap box.... but I could go on. Love watching them Antelope

All that said, I will call 'em a pronghorn or a goat or any of the above as the occasion strikes me....No disrespect intended. I am too impressed with them to think otherwise. As you can tell I see your point. CL

 

[Guy Miner]

Had a fellow take me to task for calling mule deer "mulies" once. Ah well...

Fully intend to hunt pronghorn antelope for the first time in the fall of 2012 w/Steven. Should be a hoot - and no matter what they're called, I'll respect them as game animals. Absolutely.

Guy

 

[DaveA37]

The question was asked, "Not sure how many times you have hunted them or watched them run when getting away from a predator"........Your answer is "many, many times".

While I agree there are a number of names that can be/are given to various game animals, I think the "pronghorn" (antelope for short) better suits them all though, they DO smell like a goat once you get your hands on them.

Just wanted to express my opinion on the name "goat". Sorry if i ruffled anyones feathers.

 

[Guest]

I'm firmly in the "if they're not goats, they're not antelope, either" camp here. Rovert has it dead on - they are the only thing like them on the whole dang planet, until you start getting into things that "have four legs and eat grass" of which there are numerous varieties.

Now, while they are not related to the old world antelope, nor are they related to goats, beyond the very distant relation listed above, they bear both monikers rightfully. The scientific name of the Pronghorn (technically, that's what it is in common terms, just a "pronghorn") is Antilocapra americana. Interestingly enough, that means, "American goat-antelope." So these ultra-fast creatures (the fastest animal in the Western Hemisphere) are neither antelope nor goat, and yet they are goat-antelope.

So call them speed goats, or pronghorn antelope, or prairie sprinters, or sage burners, or sand-zippers, or fork-horn turbos, but just don't let them get a glimpse of you first. You might not get a glimpse of them at all.

I'm heading west to hunt them in 2013, if I can arrange it. I'll try to come up with a good name for them before then.

 

[atmoshpere]

...terpsichore...

Now there's a word for a "Word of the Day" calendar :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[cloverleaf]

The question was asked, "Not sure how many times you have hunted them or watched them run when getting away from a predator"........Your answer is "many, many times".

While I agree there are a number of names that can be/are given to various game animals, I think the "pronghorn" (antelope for short) better suits them all though, they DO smell like a goat once you get your hands on them.

Just wanted to express my opinion on the name "goat". Sorry if i ruffled anyones feathers.

Oh I dont think you ruffled any feathers. Certainly not mine. We just like a good conversation. CL

 

[Tobey284]

I often refer to the mighty pronghorn as a "goat", as did my father and the magnificent rogues gallery of characters he shared a hunting camp with. those were the men I idolized and paid attention to when I was very young. As a young lad I tried to adopt their mannerisms, I ate the bacon they always burned and I believed their stories. That's how at the age of nine I knew that no "goat" had ever been harvested at less than 400 yards, running flat out, usually off hand and sometimes in a blizzard. At the age of ten my father explained to me that "goats" and pronghorn were actually the same critter after I failed to find the "goat" regulations in the hunting proclamation. I turned eleven, completed hunter safety and harvested my first big game animal, an old mama doe antelope, a fine old "goat" to me, though something of an aberration as she was neither distant nor running, I was laying prone (at my father's insistence) when I shot her and it was fairly warm as I recall. Since then I have had more than a few tries at Mr Pronghorn. I will always marvel at the lonesome beauty of the places they call home, cherish the memory of the men who taught me to hunt them, try to show restraint at the urge to buy an even flatter shooting rifle and a correspondingly larger and more complicated scope for the next hunt, and above all I still can't help but smile a little when the talk turns to chasin' "goats"...

 

[rquack]

You can call me anything, ... except late for dinner....