THROUGH THE BINOCULARS I see them: nine tiny men in bright jerseys running in formation across the vast short-grass prairie of eastern New Mexico. They're chasing a tawny pronghorn antelope through the crackling stalks of late summer's fading wild sunflowers. The buck weighs about 130 pounds, like the men racing after it, but that's about the only thing they have in common.
The pronghorn is the second-fastest animal on earth, while the men are merely elite marathon runners who are trying to verify a theory about human evolution. Some scientists believe that our ancestors evolved into endurance athletes in order to hunt quadrupeds by running them to exhaustion. If the theory holds up, the antelope I'm watching will eventually tire and the men will catch it. Then they'll have to decide whether to kill it for food or let it go.
"I've harvested a ton of pronghorn," bellows Peter Romero, a camo-clad, 260-pound New Mexican big-game guide who's standing next to me, squinting into a spotting scope. "But never this way." Romero, who speaks in the calibrated tongue of the modern sportsman, has "harvested" nearly every species in the New Mexico big-game handbook and isn't shy about showing off cell-phone pics of his trophies. He's also Outside's former building manager, and when he heard we wanted to see if a group of marathoners who live and train near 7,000-foot-high Santa Fe could catch an antelope, he offered to help.
Among other services, the tireless Romero showed the runners where to find antelope-hunting permits—they paid $985 for a tag on Craigslist—and explained a few laws the men would have to obey. They'd be required to stay within the roughly five square miles of ranchland we'd received permission to use, and they could pursue only a male antelope with horns taller than its ears. Assuming they actually succeeded in chasing a buck to the point of exhaustion and still felt the resolve to kill it, a licensed hunter would dispatch the animal with a pistol shot. The use of a gun or bow is required, since New Mexico doesn't allow human-hurled projectiles, sticks, or bare hands to be used as hunting weapons.
Andrew Musuva would have preferred a fist-size rock. That's what the 40-year-old Kenyan—who starred in a Subway commercial that aired ahead of last year's New York City Marathon—used to coldcock a kudu after a long chase 20 years ago in his home country. Because he's the only runner with experience in this enterprise, which is known as persistence hunting, he's become the group's unofficial leader. With him is his friend and co-conspirator Marc Esposito, a 33-year-old physical-therapy technician who's carrying his hunting license and Romero's handgun in his backpack.
"Not looking good," says Romero, eyeing the men. Perhaps sensing something suspicious, if not entirely threatening, the wary buck guns it, accelerates to 30 miles per hour—about half speed—and disappears into a wrinkle in the landscape. A few minutes later, around 1 P.M., three hunters from Hereford, Texas, drive up. Romero and I explain what's going on.
"I'm taking the four-legged son of a bitch with the white ass," one of them wagers.
"Give me ten to one and I'll take the Kenyans," says another, chuckling.
Comments
Wonderful article. Wish that all 'hunters' used their own physical skills instead of rifles and arrows. If you want to hunt, so called 'big boys', then do it like a man!
Flag ThisGreat article, cynthia, you are a daft biddy! Even with rifles, hunting is called hunting for a reason. it takes skill, practice, and patience. if it was so easy, it would be called killing. And if we all did it the stone age way, think about how much money would be lost to preserve these natural places, due to the taxes on firearms and ammunition that fund most of the conservation efforts in this country....
Flag ThisI daresay if we took Cynthia's advice, most of us would starve and the rest of us would strip the earth of it's animal population in a fortnight. It would be like North Korea; no birdsong, no animals at all. Just starving humans. Unintended consequences; but perhaps not.
Flag ThisI agree with Cynthia. Hunting herbivores with modern firearms just seems dumb. And the Priss idea that without firearms we would starve AND kill all the animals is ridiculous.
Flag ThisOld news... endurance runners were doing this in the foothills of Colorado in the late '60s, early '70s. I was there.
Flag This@Priss: You "daresay"? Yeesh.
Flag ThisI don't doubt this is possible with a large number of ideal athletes like in this scenario, but the only evolution I see in this scenario is fencing. They would have to do this in a larger space than 5 square miles for me to be a believer. Definitely an interesting article, and well written.
Flag ThisHmm, page 2 and 3 of the article seem to be unavailable, anybody care to fix this?
Flag ThisIt may have happened that our ancestors ran down healthy animals from time to time, but they developed ever more sophisticated weapons, speech, and social cooperation for a reason. And it is a lot easier to run down a wounded animal. Unless it can be demonstrated that at some point in our evolution/history our ancestors were much more like elite marathoners than the average human today, the theory is dubious.
Flag ThisSee the British documentary The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story (2000) how a Kalahari Bushman catches a kudu (antelope) by persistence hunting after 4 hours of running: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfeNcsQZmZY (55:50 until 1:01:55)
Flag ThisIt felt like I was there! It had all the excitement, and seems like it should have been longer with details about what the air and heat was like.
Flag ThisThere are many problems with this "experiment". Most of all it is approached from a runner's perspective. Not a hunter's. Much less an early man hunter's perspective. Their hunting would appear "lazy" and "inhumane" to Cynthia. They baited animals and ambushed them. They ran them off cliffs and then an awaiting party finished them by beating them to death. Running a deer couldn't be done in the woods or jungle, only the plains. This experiment only proves those involved know little of hunting.
Flag ThisA pronghorn has a VO2 Max of 300. (an elite marathoner, perhaps 70) They chose probably the most difficult animal in the world to 'run down'. Next time, try a Zebra. Probably tastes better too.
Flag ThisReally liked the story. As others said, Pronghorn are probably the hardest; deer would be easier. I've slapped deer on their rear twice; there was a fence they commonly jumped over, but by slowly working them in that direction, then picking up the pace while anticipating the direction they would turn I'd cut the tangent to get close, then suddenly sprint at them causing them to get flustered and too close to jump it. I'd cut the tangent again and whack 'em. Like counting coup. Fun stuff.
Flag ThisWith all that adrenaline in its system and in its muscles, the meat would've tasted like crap anyway.
Flag ThisDid this with a cow once in Scotland--ate tasty steaks for a month. Yum!
Flag ThisBefore trying an antelope, I suggest they start with something modest and a bit slower--like a sloth in a zoo enclosure.
Flag Thiswe have a tribe in north america that hunts deer by running them down (or did in more historic times). persistence hunters. they are the tarahumara of the barrancas de cobre (copper canyon) in chihuahua, mexico. they not only utilize their distance running and endurance, they also utilize the terrain by sometimes driving the prey over canyon walls.....
Flag ThisI like to run for food. Run into Wal-mart grab a sirloin, pay for it run back to car. Easy fast delicious.
Flag This"We can run all day, the theory goes... Our two human legs, packed as they are with long slow-twitch muscle fibers, make us better runners over long distances..." Our MODERN legs are packed. They weren't build the same way 3 million years ago, when bipedalidy emerged. Lucy could not even block the knee. She could not have gone bipedal in hope of becoming an endurance runner in future - evolution does not work teleologically. McDougall was wrong, Alister Hardy was right. We are born to sw
Flag This"And our three million sweat glands give us the ability to cool our bodies with perspiration." Our 3 million (eccrine) sweat glands are the biggest water and salt wasters on the planet. They deprive us of water in no time. According to measures taken during WWII, a soldier on a desert may lose over 20 l of water daily. Say, an andurance runner loses half... and not every hunt is successful... Most sweating animals use apocrine glands and never shed fu
Flag ThisI believe Tony is correct. Our ancestors almost certainly hunted by whatever method was most efficient. Probably, they did run down the occasional prey, but I'd bet that was unusual. If it were easier, they'd choose to drive game off cliffs, etc. They were not elegant hunters; they were skilled, make-do survivors.
Flag ThisCynthia, Did you notice that they had to use a bunch of runners to wear the antelope out? If they tried to do it themselves like you mentioned all the hunters should, one of those runners would have never caught the antelope. Guess the runner would have to stick with his granola bar.
Flag ThisWow people, your missing the point. We aren't trying to prove this is the way to do it. We are trying to prove it can be done. We are trying to prove we are the greatest distnace runners in the world and that its possible, not that this is how it was always done thousands of years ago or that its the best way to do it.
Flag ThisWow people, your missing the point. We aren't trying to prove this is the way to do it. We are trying to prove it can be done. We are trying to prove we are the greatest distnace runners in the world and that its possible, not that this is how it was always done thousands of years ago or that its the best way to do it.
Flag ThisThis American Life did a story on this, including recording the Carrier brothers. if you thought this article was interesting, definitely listen to the show http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/80/running-after-antelope
Flag ThisExcellent article. There are a lot of skills between the theory and the actual kill. I think that if a tight-knit group worked at it, they'd eventually succeed. We know its possible because the Kalahari do it. Hand a complete novice a bow and arrow or even a gun and send them out in that field, and they'd probably come back empty handed many days in a row. I envision this becoming a new craze (as bowhunting did). Ranches will cater to it and TV hunting shows will feature it. People are amazed at the capabilities of the human body. Its a true shame that most in our world will never realize the full potential of their own bodies.
Flag ThisI would rather see if a basic lion can run down a bunch of "elite" runners. Lets call it sport.
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