Starving Antelope eat Junipers

While on book tour to Drumheller, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge locals I spoke with told me this is the first year the snow is so deep antelope are breaking their fragile legs trying to get through it.

Fish and wildlife people have found 40 dead antelope in Medicine Hat gardens. Apparently in a rare move antelope have come into town and have eaten gardens but are unable to digest all the strange food - they are dying with stomaches full of juniper.

It is so sad. I just read in National Geographic magazine about migrations - it said that antelope can't jump fences so the farmers have started cutting out the lower strands to help them crawl under but I guess that doesn't help when the snow is this deep. Thankfully it is melting now. These are such beautiful animals - they look more African than Albertan and they are truly a breathtaking sight to see.

Photo above is taken in a more normal winter when the prairie north of Medicine Hat, Alberta is dry.