Sonoran pronghorn rebounding -- with hauled water

The continent's fastest mammal went from 140 individuals to just 21 in 2002. Biologists took to herding the remaining animals into pens in the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports the population is around 85, with some 18 new fawns this year.

This is the result of hauling water into the harsh, nearly waterless refuge, which is among the most arid places in North America and traversed by the famed Camino del Diablo.

Artificially hauled water is not uniformly beneficial. It also attracts ravens, which eat desert tortoise eggs. (pdf of scientific study; see also this article describing juvenile desert tortoises as "walking raviolis" for ravens.)

But in this case artificial water may have saved, at least for now, one of our rarest animals.

--Zadig