The pronghorn’s Nebraska stronghold is the wide open Panhandle. Of 228 records, Sioux County alone holds 93, with Dawes, Kimball, Garden, and Cherry counties behind it, a map of shortgrass tableland and Sandhills fringe where sightlines run for miles.
Built for speed on open ground
The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in North America, capable of sprints past 50 miles per hour and of holding a cruising pace no predator on the plains can match. Its enormous eyes spot movement at long range, its hollow hair insulates against prairie cold, and it slips under fences rather than jumping them, which is why big, unfenced rangeland suits it best. Oglala National Grassland, Soldier Creek Wilderness, and the breaks around Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and Ash Hollow State Historical Park preserve exactly that country.
Fawns with the spring grass
Pronghorn are resident in Nebraska all year, and the record swells from May through July. Does drop their fawns, usually twins, as the grass greens in late May and June, and small nursery bands feed openly through midsummer. Counts taper by November, when herds gather on winter range and a gray-brown animal on a gray-brown plain asks more of binoculars than of the naked eye.
Status in Nebraska
NatureServe ranks the pronghorn S4, Apparently Secure, in Nebraska, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
