Local resident Brian Tognoni captured this video last week of two male pronghorns locking horns near Lower Elgin Road:
Here’s some commentary on this video from wildlife biologist, naturalist and longtime PRT columnist Vince Pinto:
This herd of pronghorns is present year-round in the Sonoita-Elgin area, but their movements are fluid between the grasslands near town and those of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. I’ve lived in the local area for the past 16 years, but have yet to witness such a fierce battle between pronghorn bucks as the one we see in this video.
Pronghorn bucks duel for herd supremacy by locking horns in a pushing contest to establish who is the alpha male. The species breeds in the fall, so the males here were fighting for access to multiple females, given that they are polygamous—top bucks mate with multiple does. Note that towards the end of the video that the male with the smaller horns won, chasing his rival away. Perhaps he was the younger and more fit of the two, at least on this occasion.
In general, pronghorn, which are often erroneously referred to as “antelope,” use their speed to elude predators such as coyotes. The second-fastest land mammal on Earth, pronghorns are also the only mammal species that sheds its horns each year—generally in November or December, after mating season has ended.