By
The Associated Press
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. - Game managers were simply looking for a good trophy animal to improve the hunting in this empty quarter of southern New Mexico. What they got, it turns out 30 years later, was a desert antelope with a talent for breeding that would make a rabbit blush.
The oryx, a native of Africa's Kalahari desert, has taken to the Chihuahuan desert at White Sands Missile Range like it was home turf. The original handful introduced in 1969 has grown to roughly 3,000 animals, despite the fact that hunters are allowed to kill more and more each year.
And that's not all.
The animals have begun to migrate off the 2 million-acre missile range. They have been spotted on highways and private land - even on the runways at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, where top-secret F-117 stealth fighters are based.
They are tripping sensors and consuming wildlife management resources at the missile range, where weapons systems for the U.S. military are tested. Ranchers complain the oryx is consuming forage that is intended for cattle.
Early studies grossly underestimated the oryx's ability to thrive, and assumed they would stay concentrated in an area considered "empty." Researchers know better now, and say that if the White Sands herds were left undisturbed, the antelope would spread throughout southern New Mexico.
"And in Texas and Mexico," added Steve Henry, wildlife administrator for the New Mexico Game and Fish Department.
"We know so very little about oryx," acknowledged Patrick Morrow, a missile range wildlife biologist.
To find the best formula for controlling the burgeoning population, missile range researchers have begun a $350,000, four-year study of the animals' haunts and habits.
Although New Mexico Game and Fish Department officials have steadily increased the number of hunting permits issued since the first oryx hunt in 1974, the herd continues to grow. Hunters took more than 700 animals in the 1999-2000 season. About 1,000 will be culled this season.
But increasing the number of permits is costly for the department because wildlife managers must spend time with each hunting party. The military weapons tested at White Sands mean it can be a dangerous place, and public access is highly restricted. Hunters are given maps with strict boundaries, and face a list of safety rules. At least one visitor has been killed by picking up unexploded ordnance on the range.
The most common public complaint is that the oryxes compete with cattle for forage, much of which is similar to the vegetation on its native range in Africa. Eleven of the oryx's preferred 33 types of plants munched in the Kalahari are found in New Mexico.
Even as mule deer and desert bighorn sheep populations dwindled in drought between 1992 and 1996, the oryx thrived because of a natural affinity for the heat and dryness.
To survive the desert, oryxes use nearly every molecule of moisture stored in the plants they eat, meaning they don't require streams or springs to survive. And they have a capillary system above their palate that acts like a radiator, preventing their brains from baking in the heat.
They also have few natural predators in New Mexico. Although a mountain lion occasionally will kill an oryx, their ranges rarely overlap, with the lions prowling the peaks and the oryxes grazing in the grasslands below.
If they are attacked, the oryx, weighing an average of 400 pounds and with horns more than 31/2 feet long, can ably defend itself. Morrow noted that the oryx is reputed to be the only hoofed animal ever to kill an African lion.
That's not the most notable of the oryxes' survival skills, however. Females reach sexual maturity at 11/2 - and they are nearly always pregnant thereafter. The environment is so suited to the oryx that twin births have been observed, which is considered unusual even in the Kalahari, said Doug Burkett, a wildlife range specialist with Mevatec, a missile range contractor.
The new study aims to find a strategy that will maintain the population at 800 to 1,200 and keep it within the boundaries of the missile range. It also will examine the animals' impact on other species - including ones that are threatened or endangered - and their habitats.
Quarterly aerial surveys will help to determine population trends. Counting and harvesting will focus on regions within the missile range to provide more detailed geographical data. Radio collars attached to 100 animals will help ground observers track their movements and fill in more details.
One of the new population reduction strategies likely will be to hunt more females, which researchers believe will have a major impact on the herd's growth. However, it is hard to tell the difference between males and females, so that would require experienced spotters in the hunting party who could make positive identifications.
Regardless of the study's findings, experts said hunting will continue to be the main tool to control the population. And there is no shortage of hunters willing to take up the challenge.
Morrow said the wildlife department receives up to 30 applicants for every oryx permit it issues, at a cost of $1,500 for a nonresident and $100 for a resident. Most of the permits are once-in-a-lifetime, meaning the person who receives it can't apply again.
