Deer-Like Animal Rebounds in Arizona (Sonoran Pronghorn)

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2007/may/14/051405537.html

CABEZA PRIETA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Ariz. (AP) - Federal wildlife biologist Mike Coffeen is ecstatic these days. His efforts to save North America's fastest mammal - the endangered Sonoran pronghorn - are succeeding beyond expectations.

Five years after drought whittled the deer-like animal's population to a handful, pushing it to the brink of extinction, its numbers are back above 100.

Biologists are especially encouraged by the 18 fawns born within the past three months in a square-mile captive breeding enclosure within this sprawling national refuge in southern Arizona - what Coffeen calls "our disaster ace in the hole."

"Eighteen is above what I thought we'd have, so I was ecstatic," said Coffeen, who is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're at a point in this program where we're on a roll."

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