Wyoming Wildlife

Random Thoughts on a Windy Wyoming Day

Today in my little part of Wyoming we are experiencing warm weather, in the mid-fifties, and incredible wind. Weather app says winds are blowing 25-45 with gusts to 60. Good day to stay inside.

Bison - The two main species of Buffalo in the world reside in Africa. In America we have Bison, and lots of them, over a half million by recent count.  For some odd reason, in the past two years sportscasters have started to pronounce Bison when talking about the North Dakota State Bison as if it were – Bye -zzon, instead of the correct Bye-son. Drives me nuts, but since they keep doing it, I guess no one else either notices or cares. Hope I never read a novel with hunters or native tribes are off, hunting bizzon.

Pronghorn - In that same vain people in the west have referred to Pronghorn as Antelope for years. There are 91 species of Antelope but none in the western hemisphere. As for the Pronghorn there is only one, and in Wyoming, we have a varied population that now numbers around 400,000, it was as high as 600,000 plus, as recently as 2005, but drought and bad winters have moved the total lower. I hunted Pronghorn for years and enjoyed it, but now hunt only with my camera and they are a most interesting subject.

American Sagebrush Ecosystem – Looks like sagebrush is on the decline in the west. At first, this may look to not be a problem, but like all ecosystem’s destroying or greatly changing one will gradually change others, much more than at first believed.

Wyoming is also home to 50,000 or so, Mule Deer. We have a terrific population around here, even in town. They can be a menace, especially when they eat the blooms from my strawberries and tops from my tomatoes. They also love to take a bite from green tomatoes, sorry deer it’s not an apple, then spit it out. How many albino mule deer are there in the state? Well, that’s a good question. I have found researchers that say one in 500,000 others that say it could be much lower, one in 20,000. That means we, have two at any one time or one every ten years. Either way, it is exciting to see one.