Pronghorn buck Charles Russell breaks
— — the fastest animal on the continent, standing still.
Not only on a wall.
“A pronghorn buck on the broken ground above the Missouri River, inside the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge covers about 1.1 million acres along 125 river miles, from Fort Peck Reservoir west toward the Upper Missouri Breaks. Pronghorn are the fastest land animal in the Americas, clocked near sixty miles an hour over open prairie. Coyotes, mule deer, and elk share the coulees. The bucks shed their black horn sheaths each fall.
Pronghorn buck Charles Russell breaks, on ceramic.
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The place, in three passes.
The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge covers about 1.1 million acres across six central Montana counties, running 125 river miles along the Missouri River from Fort Peck Dam west toward the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. The refuge was established in 1936 and is named for the Western painter Charles Marion Russell. The land is broken short-grass prairie cut by sandstone coulees, with Fort Peck Reservoir at the eastern end. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers the refuge from headquarters at Lewistown.
The pronghorn, Antilocapra americana, is the fastest land animal in the Americas and the second-fastest on Earth, recorded at sustained speeds near sixty miles an hour over open ground. The species evolved its speed on the Pleistocene plains to outrun the American cheetah, which went extinct around twelve thousand years ago — the pronghorn now runs faster than anything currently chasing it. Bucks weigh roughly one hundred ten to one hundred forty pounds and shed the keratin sheath of their black horns each autumn after the rut.
Inside the refuge the human footprint is light. There are no developed campgrounds along most of the river corridor, and one paved road, the Missouri Breaks Back Country Byway, drops in from U.S. Highway 191 on a gravel descent. Elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and over two hundred bird species share the country with pronghorn. Wolves and grizzly bears have been recorded crossing through. On a clear night the sky carries the dark-sky reading typical of central Montana, with the Milky Way visible end-to-end.